Career
He was the second of thirteen children born in Hemel Hempstead, England to Joseph, Junior. and Maria Lefevre Cranstone. In 1838 he enrolled in Henry Sass"s School of Art in London and at age 18 was received as a probationer at the coveted Royal Academy Schools on April 21, 1840. Following his formal training he exhibited a number of oil paintings in the annual exhibitions of the Royal Society of British Artists in Suffolk Street and the Royal Academy.
In addition to his water color and oil paintings during his lifetime Cranstone also produced etchings and pen and ink and chalk drawings.
During the trip he prepared almost 300 pen and ink with wash sketches documenting both the rural and urban areas of antebellum America they visited. These sketches became available for sale in 1928 and are at the Lilly Library at Indiana University.
In 1933 another collection of 98 larger watercolor versions of a representative number of these sketches were sold at auction. Today, Cranstone"s paintings can be found in the art collections of the White House.
The Metropolitan Museum of Artist
The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The Virginia Historical Society. The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.
The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
The Oglebay Institute Mansion Museum in Wheeling, West Virginia The Dacorum Heritage Trust, Berkhamsted, England and a number of other institutions and private collections.
One particular painting resulting from his American visit was the oil "Slave Auction, Virginia" which hangs in the Virginia Historical Society. Donald Smith"s biography contains a facsimile of this painting along with a letter written by Cranstone to the Hemel Hempstead Gazette dated December 29, 1860 on the President Lincoln"s election and the horrors of slavery.
On July 12, 1882 Cranstone"s wife, Lillia, died.
Here, Cranstone continued his painting of the local land and seascapes. In 1889 he moved with Beatrice to Brisbane where he continued drawing local subjects up to his death on June 22, 1893. A collection of the art he prepared in Australia along with a volume of illustrated poetry verse brought with him from England can be found at the John Oxley Library in Brisbane.