Alfred William Rich

His study of art began at the age of eight, as a self-taught student inspired by the examples of Turner, Old Crome, and Constable at the National Gallery.

But it was his six years of drawing from classical casts and from nature at the Slade School of Fine Art, starting in 1890, which led him to his love of landscape and watercolour.

But whilst he referred to the earlier school of watercolourists his works are all his own and were created as much as reaction to French Impressionism but with a peculiarly English slant.

Rich was an advocate of a natural approach to painting, trying to capture the emotions which a subject provoked, rather than accurately reproducing a scene.

His book Watercolour Painting (1918) was published as part of the popular New Art Library and remained in print for nearly 50 years as a standard work on the subject.