Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Austin, Samuel (d.1834)

692899Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 02 — Austin, Samuel (d.1834)1885Robert Edmund Graves

AUSTIN, SAMUEL (d. 1834), water-colour painter, was a native of Liverpool. He commenced life as a banker's clerk, but eventually gave up a good position in order to devote himself entirely to the art in which he had excelled as an amateur, and of which he was enthusiastically fond. He exhibited water-colour drawings at the Society of British Artists from 1824 to 1826, and from 1827 at the annual exhibitions of the Society of Painters in Water-Colours, of which body he was elected an associate in the last-named year. He painted landscapes, and occasionally rustic figures: but his best works were coast scenes, introducing boats and figures, some of which were from sketches in Holland, France, and on the Rhine. An example of his work, 'Shakespeare's Cliff, Dover, with Luggers on the Beach,' is in the South Kensington Museum. A 'View of Dort' has been engraved after him by William Miller. He died at Liverpool in July 1834.

[Redgrave's Dictionary of Artists of the English School, 1878; Society of British Artists, Exhibition Catalogues, 1824-6; Society of Painters in Water-Colours, Exhibition Catalogues, 1827-34.]