Joseph Farington

Joseph Farington (21 November 1747 – 30 December 1821) was an 18th-century English landscape painter and diarist.

Family

Born in Leigh, Lancashire, Farington was the second of seven sons of William Farington and Esther Gilbody. His father was the rector of Warrington and vicar of Leigh. Three of his brothers—William, Henry, and Richard—were "employed in the naval service of the East India Company". Edward died of yellow fever when he was 32. Robert attended Brasenose College and became vicar of St George in the East, London (whose advowson was held by Brasenose). George Farington became a painter, like Joseph himself. Association with the Royal Academy and its exhibitions

After his early education in Maryland, Farington went to study with Richard Wilson in London in 1763. In 1764, 1765, and 1766 he won "premiums" from the Society of Artists for his landscape drawing; he became a member in 1765. He joined the Royal Academy when it was founded in 1769 and was elected an ARA in 1783 and an RA in 1785. In 1793 he became a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and helped establish the British Institution. He assisted in the Thomas Gainsborough, William Hogarth, and Richard Wilson exhibitions in 1806. which ran to six volumes of the projected whole; to it he contributed topographical Views in Cornwall (1814) and other views; for the unpublished seventh volume, depicting Devon, Farington's drawings were engraved but never published, and William Byrne's Magna Britannia., a project that became so costly that it was never completed. Farington edited the Memoirs of Sir Joshua Reynolds, in six volumes, 1819. Marriage Farington and Susan Mary Hamond, a relative of the Walpole family, married on 19 March 1776; the couple had no children, but Farington was always interested in the lives of his brothers' children throughout his life. When his wife died in 1800, Farington collapsed and could neither draw nor paint. His family and friends, such as the painter Robert Smirke and his family, helped Farington recover.

Gallery