Andrew Wilson (artist)

When quite young he began to study art under Alexander Nasmyth, and then, at the age of seventeen, went to London, where he worked for some time in the schools of the Royal Academy.

Europe was at war again, but he reached Genoa, where he settled under the protection of the American consul and was elected a member of the Ligurian Academy.

As a member of that society he was present when Napoleon Bonaparte visited its exhibition, and on some envious academician informing the latter, who had paused to admire Wilson's picture, that it was by an Englishman, he was met by the retort: ‘Le talent n'a pas de pays.’ In 1805 he returned through Germany to London with the pictures (over fifty in number) which he had acquired.

Settling in London, he painted a good deal in watercolour, was one of the original members of the Associated Artists (1808), and held for a period the position of teacher of drawing in the Royal Military College, Sandhurst.

Appointed in 1818 master of the Trustees' Academy, he moved to Edinburgh, where his pupils included Robert Scott Lauder, William Simson, and David Octavius Hill.