John Craske (6 July 1881 - 26 August 1943) was an English artist who, without formal training, painted and later worked with coloured threads to create embroideries.

Craske started working life as a deep sea fisherman sailing out of Grimsby, and later ran fish shops in Norfolk.

After a breakdown during World War I, he was discharged from the army and returned to Norfolk, taking up painting and embroidery for health reasons in his 40s.

His works gained the attention of British and American collectors and were displayed in exhibitions in Norfolk, in London and in America.

John Craske was born on 6 July 1881 in the fishing community in Lower Sheringham, north Norfolk.

The family moved to Grimsby where Craske went to school until the age of 14 when he was expected to join his brothers on long, cold, gruelling and dangerous expeditions trawling for fish on sail-powered smacks[2][3] (a contemporary studio photograph of Craske shows a young fisherman holding a length of fake paper rope, taken to leave some record in case he drowned).

[5] As a result, the sailing smacks were no longer competitive and the Craske family moved inland, to Dereham, in 1905.

[8] The couple moved initially to Swanton Morley where Craske ran his fish round with two ponies and a pannier on each.

Three days later she received another telegram saying that an American doctor at the Royal Herbert Hospital, Woolwich, had diagnosed an abscess on the brain and said that Craske would be permanently prone to attacks of nervous collapse.

Following Duigan's recommendation for 'sea air', they went to Blakeney to stay for three weeks in a cottage called ‘The Pightle’ which the family rented for them.

[7] They returned to Dereham in 1921 to find their rented house in Norwich Road was not available and the shop had been sold as the owner had died.

During the time at Wiveton they bought a ship’s boat and Craske cut the sails, Laura made them on her sewing machine.

He always painted seascapes and boats and used any flat surface – plywood from tea chests, box lids, and door panels.

[7][12] In 1927 Valentine Ackland was staying with her parents in Winterton and heard from an aunt about an invalid fisherman who made model boats.

[2][7] Craske and Laura moved back to Dereham in 1928 and bought the house in Norwich Road which they previously rented.

[7] Once Craske had been shown needlework he began to ‘paint with wool’; in December 1928 his first work was a ‘mantle border’.

[12] His brothers Edward and William helped him with creative projects such as a concrete fish pond in the shape of a whale in the back garden of 42 Norwich Road, which Craske decorated with shells, and a wood carving of a shark under the front window.

His health went into another decline and during long periods of illness he worked in his primitive form of wool embroidery and depicted the scenes of the seafaring life he had known.

[7] Meanwhile, Valentine Ackland showed The James Edward painting at the Warren Gallery in Maddox St, London in 1929.

It was seen by Dorothy Warren who gave Valentine Ackland a blank cheque to obtain Craske paintings for her gallery.

[12] In 1931 Ackland took a new friend, novelist Sylvia Townsend Warner, to meet Craske and she bought several paintings.

By now Craske was concentrating on his embroideries and made the 14 feet (4.3 m) Panorama of the Norfolk Coast (now exhibited at Glandford Shell Museum).

In 1941 Craske's work was featured in an exhibition at Ala Story's American British Art Center in New York.

[15] Craske had listened on the wireless to accounts of the small boats who sailed to rescue soldiers from the French coast in the historic World War II evacuation.

[13] A biography of Craske records: "The display of forty-seven pictures at the twenty-fourth Aldeburgh Festival, in 1971, was the first major Craske retrospective, the nucleus formed by the Sylvia Townsend Warner and Valentine Ackland bequest and individual works lent by friends - Bea Howe, Gerald Finzi's wife, Janet Machen, Elizabeth Wade White and Valentine's solicitor Peg Manisty.

A further group of six works came from John Duigan, son of Craske's doctor in Dereham who had originally accepted them in settlement of outstanding medical bills.

[21] Many newspaper, magazine and scholarly articles have been written about Craske, his life with Laura and the works of art he created.