Sir Alfred Edward East, RA, RBA (15 December 1844 – 28 September 1913) was an English painter.

In April 1888 he had shared an exhibition at the galleries of the Fine Art Society with T. C. Gotch and W. Ayerst Ingram, and was commissioned the following year by Marcus Huish, managing director of the Society, to spend six months in Japan to paint the landscape and the people of the country.

[2] In 1906 he was elected president of the Royal Society of British Artists, a position he held until his death.

In that year, he published his 107-page illustrated The Art of Landscape Painting in Oil Colour; in its preface, he made the observation: "The greatest errors in landscape painting are to be found – contradictory as it may appear – not so much in the matter of technique as in the painter's attitude toward Nature".

His body was taken back to Kettering and lay in state in the Art Gallery, where it was surrounded by the pictures he had presented to the town, and attracted crowds of several thousands.