Biography for John Martin

Education

Martin was apprenticed to a coach painter in Newcastle but left for London in 1805, at first working as a painter of china.

Employment

Martin was the foremost painter of epic historical and religious scenes in British Romantic art. He exhibited at the Royal Academy and British Institution. He devoted much of his time to the lucrative production of engravings, including illustrations to Milton and the Bible. A rivalry in the painting of ever grander subjects developed in the late 1820s with the Bristol painter Francis Danby (1793-1861). He spent much time devising elaborate plans for improving civic amenities (notably sewers), and his last years were devoted to the completion of as large trilogy of canvases illustrating 'The Last Judgement' (now in the Tate Gallery).