Wall Art Print entitled William Edward Norton 1843-1916 Figure by Celestial Images | 8 x 10
(Poster Print entitled 'William Edward Norton 1843-1916 fi...)
Poster Print entitled 'William Edward Norton 1843-1916 figure'. Multiple sizes available. Primary colors within this image include: beautiful tones sure to enhance your space. Made in USA. Satisfaction guaranteed. Inks used are latex-based and designed to last. Printed on high quality gloss finish paper with archival quality inks. Looks great in dorm rooms, kid rooms, offices, and more.
Wall Art Print Entitled William Edward Norton 1843-1916 Black Squall by Celestial Images | 44 x 36
(Poster Print entitled 'William Edward Norton 1843-1916 Bl...)
Poster Print entitled 'William Edward Norton 1843-1916 Black Squall'. Multiple sizes available. Primary colors within this image include: beautiful tones sure to enhance your space. Made in USA. Satisfaction guaranteed. Inks used are latex-based and designed to last. Looks great in dorm rooms, kid rooms, offices, and more. Printed on high quality gloss finish paper with archival quality inks.
Wall Art Print Entitled William Edward Norton 1843-1916 The Boy by Celestial Images | 16 x 21
(Poster Print entitled 'William Edward Norton 1843-1916 Th...)
Poster Print entitled 'William Edward Norton 1843-1916 The Boy'. Multiple sizes available. Primary colors within this image include: beautiful tones sure to enhance your space. Made in USA. Satisfaction guaranteed. Archival-quality UV-resistant inks. Looks great in dorm rooms, kid rooms, offices, and more. Printed on high quality gloss finish paper with archival quality inks.
William Edward Norton was an American marine painter. He was for about twenty years a constant and regular exhibitor at the Paris Salon and many other places.
Background
William Edward Norton was born on June 28, 1843 in Boston, Massachussets, United States. He was the son of Daniel and Mary (Carr) Norton and a descendant of a family of shipbuilders. His father was a sailmaker and his mother was descended from George Carr, ship's carpenter of the Mayflower. From the time he could hold a pencil he began to draw.
Education
Norton was educated in the public schools of Charlestown. When Norton was about ten he made a drawing of the statue of General Joseph Warren on Bunker Hill which so impressed one of the members of the school board that he advised the boy to go to the Lowell Institute, but his parents would not allow him to do so. He entered the night classes of the Lowell Institute, where he came under the excellent instruction of George Hollingsworth, studying perspective, light and shade, and color. He also studied anatomy both in the Lowell Institute and at the Harvard Medical School, where he made over five hundred drawings in the dissecting room.
Career
Norton went to work in an office on Rowe's Wharf, Boston, where at odd moments he made sketches of the stevedores, the horses, the shipping and docks; then he went to sea on a merchant ship for a long voyage before the mast. Two episodes gave him standing with the tough company in the forecastle: he whipped "Dutch Louis" for attempting to bully him, and while off watch he drew lifelike sketches of his shipmates, their rude quarters, and various scenes on the deck. On his return to Boston he found employment as a house and sign painter.
His daylight hours were devoted to house and sign painting, and, later, to fresco work and decorating; the early hours of the evening he gave to study; and from nine o'clock to midnight, in the paint shop of his employer, he often painted sea pictures with house paints, which he sold for trifling sums to his fellow workmen.
At the age of twenty-one he ventured to open a studio in Boston, and George Inness gave him counsel and encouragement. After two more voyages before the mast, in 1877 he found himself in London, where he remained for about a year, then went to Paris for further training under Antoine Vollon and Jacquesson de la Chevreuse and in the École des Beaux-Arts.
During the ensuing three years he visited Italy and other European countries, then opened a studio in London, where he continued to live until 1902.
Other good examples of his work are owned by the Boston Art Club, the Boston Athletic Association, Essex Hall at Salem, Massachussets, and the Black Heath Art Club of London. His paintings of sailing vessels are spirited and full of movement. Nothing could be more thoroughly suggestive of the atmosphere and color of the ocean and the old-time clipper-ships than his mid-Atlantic compositions. His work has sailorlike qualities and could never have been done by a landsman.