Mike Chaplin

Michael James Chaplin, RWS, RE, FRSA (19 September 1943 – 1 April 2026) was a British artist, known primarily for his work in the mediums of intaglio printmaking, watercolour and oil painting. He was one of the UK’s foremost experts on the artist J. M. W. Turner, and from 1998 to 2001 was a resident art expert on the Channel 4 television art programme Watercolour Challenge with Hannah Gordon.

Early life and education Chaplin was born in Little Barford, Bedfordshire, in 1943, the son of Alexander Bridges (Tom) Chaplin and Rose Mary Rebecca (née James), and attended primary school in nearby Sandy.

In the early 1950s, he moved with his parents and older sister to Harpenden in Hertfordshire.

As a child, his love of art was already starting to develop; by the age of 12 he had already decided that he wished to become a professional artist.

He attended St. Albans Boys' Grammar School, where he was a contemporary of Colin Blunstone and Chris White, who later formed the pop group The Zombies. Chaplin was the guitarist in an earlier incarnation of the band alongside Colin Coke and Chris White, called The Markysparks, in reference to Markyate, Chris White's home town.

After completing A-levels, Chaplin spent a short time working as an Art Technician in the school’s art department, before continuing to the School of Art at Watford Technical College to study graphic design, gaining his National Diploma of Design. He followed this with a postgraduate course in Printmaking at the Brighton School of Art, now the University of Brighton Faculty of Arts.

Career, adult life and death While still a student in the late 1960s, Chaplin's first work as a professional artist was to create woodcut pictures for the dust jackets of books. He sold his first picture for seven guineas.

His earliest fine art pieces were almost all in the medium of etching. The influence of Chaplin's background in graphic design is very clear in these first pictures, which are highly stylised, bordering on abstract. His love of architecture, particularly industrial, was also becoming apparent; an early etching depicts the workings of a disused power station, a motif which would recur later in his career.

After completing his studies, Chaplin married in 1967 and moved with his wife Gay, also an artist, to Maidstone in Kent the following year. They had one son, Nick (born 1977) and one daughter, Briony (born 1980).

In the late 60s, while still a student, Chaplin was elected as an associate of the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers and Engravers, at the time the youngest artist ever to receive this honour. He was later elected to full fellowship in 1971, subsequently serving as Honorary Secretary and Vice President under the presidency of Harry Eccleston, finally becoming a senior fellow of the society.

In 1997, having been an associate since 1993, Chaplin was elected a Full Member of the Royal Watercolour Society. , The Complete Book of Drawing and Painting and How to Paint Like Turner.

Chaplin died in Savannah on 1 April 2026, at the age of 82, following a seven-month battle with mesothelioma.