Michael Angelo Rooker

Michael Angelo Rooker ARA (1746[1] or 1743[2] – 3 March 1801) was an English oil and watercolour painter of architecture and landscapes, illustrator and engraver.

For a long time he was chief scene-painter at the Haymarket Theatre in London, and appeared in the playbills as Signer Rookerini; but a few years before his death he was discharged, in consequence, it is said, of his refusal to aid in paying the debts of Colman, the manager.

In 1788 he began to make autumnal tours in the country, to which we owe most of those drawings which entitle him to an honourable place among the founders of the watercolour school.

They are chiefly of architectural remains in Norfolk, Suffolk, Somerset, Warwickshire, and other counties, which he drew well, and treated with taste and refinement.

Rooker became depressed after his discharge from the Haymarket Theatre, and died suddenly in his chair in Dean Street, Soho, on 3 March 1801.