William Callow RWS (1812–1908) was born in Greenwich, the elder son of a builder and carpenter who encouraged his artistic talents early on. From 1823 he was strongly influenced and aided by the Fielding brothers: studying sketching, engraving and watercolour under Theodore, Copley and Thrales, and, from 1829, working with Newton in Paris.
From 1831 he shared a studio with Thomas Shotter Boys, whose subjects and style, along with that of Richard Parkes Bonington, were to have a profound influence on Callow's works. Establishing himself as a successful drawing master, he was offered a job teaching the family of King Louis Philippe I of France, and for several years gave lessons to the Duc de Nemours and Princess Clémentine. Elected a member of the Old Water-Colour Society in 1838, Callow returned to London in 1841 and began to paint larger pictures and in oil.
He travelled extensively in France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland and Italy, sketching prolifically. In 1846 he married one of his students, the artist and composer Harriet Anne Smart. The couple moved to Great Missenden, in Buckinghamshire, where Callow died in 1908 aged ninety-five.
William Callow's work can be found in numerous public collections, including the British Museum, V&A, Tate, Courtauld Gallery, Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery and The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.
