Francis Danby was taught the rudiments of painting by the landscape artist O'Connor, from Dublin. He started at a very early age, exhibiting his first landscape, Evening, in Dublin in 1812. In 1813, Danby, O'Connor and Georges Pétrie went to London. Danby sold a few drawings in Bristol, the proceeds of the sale paying the group's expenses. The young landscape artist, encouraged by this success, settled in Bristol for several years, making a living from giving watercolour classes, and occasionally sending paintings to the Royal Academy. He became an associate of the Royal Academy in 1925 with his work, The Delivery of Israel out of Egypt. In 1830, he fell out with the Academy and left England, living in Switzerland for 11 years, where he spent his time building boats, hunting and producing to order little paintings of no value. During his absence, he only sent two paintings to the annual London exhibition, The Golden Age and The Jewels She Was Wearing Were Rich and Rare.

Group Exhibitions

1973, The Bristol School of Artists: Francis Danby and Painting in Bristol, City Art Gallery, Bristol

1995, The Perfection of England: Artist Visitors to Devon c.1750-1870, Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter

2007, British Vision: Observation and Imagination 1750-1950, Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Ghent

Solo Exhibitions

1961, City Art Gallery, Bristol

1988, Tate Gallery, London and City Art Gallery, Bristol

Museum and Gallery Holdings

Bath (Victoria AG): Opening of the Sixth Seal (c. 1828, oil on canvas)

Bristol (City Mus. & AG): Boys Sailing a Little Boat (c. 1822, oil on canvas); Sunset at Sea after a Storm (c. 1824, oil on canvas); View of Blaise Castle Woods (oil on canvas); View of the Avon Gorge (oil on canvas)

Dublin: End of the World; Last Rays of the Sun

Edinburgh (Nat. Gal. of Scotland, Print Room): Landscape Composition: Woodland Pool with Seated Figure (sepia); Landscape with Temple and Figures (drawing)

Exeter (Royal Albert Memorial Mus.): Dead Calm: Sunset at the Bight of Exmouth (1855, oil on canvas)

Geneva (MAH): Baptism of Jesus

Leicester: St Vincent's Rocks; Bristol Canal; Lord Clifford's Park; King's Weston

London (Royal Academy of Arts): The Crucifixion (c. 1835, watercolour and gouache)

London (Tate Collection): Children by a Brook (c. 1822, oil on canvas); Liensfiord, Norway: Calm (c. 1835, oil on wood); The Deluge (exhibited 1840, oil on canvas); The Wood Nymph's Hymn to the Rising Sun (1845, oil on canvas)

London (Sir John Soane's Mus.): Scene from 'The Merchant of Venice' (c. 1828)

London (Victoria and Albert Mus.): Disappointed Love (1821); Liensford Lake; Poison Tree, Java; Painter's Holiday; Fisherman's Home at Sunrise; Portrait of Sir Sam. Egerton Brydges; On the Avon; Watercourse; Sir Samuel Egerton

New Haven (Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection): The Avon Gorge Looking Towards Clifton (c. 1820-1821)

Preston (Harris Mus. and AG): The Delivery of Israel - Pharaoh and his Hosts overwhelmed in the Red Sea (1825)

Sheffield: Tempé Valley

Sydney (AG of New South Wales): The Three Sisters of Phaeton Weeping over the Tomb of their Brother (1845, oil on canvas)

Washington DC (NGA): 3 drawings

Washington DC (Smithsonian American AM): Burning of an Old Boat (watercolour)

Wolverhampton (AG): The Shipwreck (1859)