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Edmund Blair Leighton (21 September 1853 – 1 September 1922) was an English painter of religious scenes, historical genre
Paintings that depict scenes of ordinary people going about their everyday lives. scenes, and portraits.[1] Although he is associated with the Pre-Raphaelite
Group of English artists formed in 1848 to counter what they saw as the corrupting influence of the late-Renaissance painter Raphael. movement of the mid-to-late 19th and early 20th centuries, his work is less stylised and more naturalistic.[2]
Born in London, the son of the painter Charles Blair Leighton (1823–1855) and Caroline Leighton, née Boosey, Leighton was educated at University College School, leaving at the age of 15 to take up employment with a tea merchant. In pursuance of his interest in art, he attended evening classes in South Kensington, and then at Heatherley’s School in Newman Street, London, before joining the Royal Academy Schools aged 21.[3] Although he exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy from 1878 until 1920, he never became an academician or an associate, although he did become a member of the Royal Institute of Oil Painters.[1][3]
Leighton married Katherine Nash in 1885, with whom he had a son, the painter E. J. Blair Leighton, and a daughter. He died in London on 1 September 1922.[3]
