The son of a Liverpool landscape painter, Hunt first exhibited at the age of twelve, and later joined the Liverpool Academy, showing there and in London. Prior to 1861 he pursued an academic career at Oxford, but that year he married a popular novelist, and in 1862 moved to London and became an associate of the Old Water-Colour Society. A follower of J.M.W. Turner and a close friend of the Pre-Raphaelites, Hunt regularly worked out of doors on his tours in Scotland, the Lake District, North Wales, and elsewhere, and his laboriously executed exhibition landscapes are brilliant in both technique and coloring. In 1869-1870, five years after he became a full member of the Old Water-Colour Society, he made his most memorable Continental trip, to Italy, Sicily, and Greece. He was elected vice-president of the Old Water-Colour Society in 1888. (Wilton/Lyles 1993, p. 317)
Artist Bibliography
1993
The Great Age of British Watercolors 1750-1880. Exh. cat. NGA, 1993.