Lowes Cato Dickinson Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

Lowes Cato Dickinson, born in Kilburn, North London, on 27th November 1819, was the fourth child and second eldest surviving son of Ann Rowden Carter and Joseph Dickinson (1780–1849), a stationer, print-seller and lithographic publisher. He was part of a family firm of artists, lithographic print makers and publishers from New Bond Street, London, which was established in the early 1820s by his father. Dickinson showed artistic talent at an early age and when he was in his early twenties, he either drew portraits or created lithographic prints from the work of other portrait painters, which were published as prints by his father's firm. He later became an established portrait artist, exhibiting 110 portraits in oils and crayons at the Royal Academy between 1848 and 1891. After the death of his father, Lowes Cato Dickinson and two of his brothers, William Robert Dickinson and Gilbert Bell Dickinson, inherited the family firm. Under the name of Dickinson Brothers, these three eldest surviving sons of  Joseph Dickinson at the time, continued to produce lithographic prints and portraits at their business premises at 114 New Bond Street, London. Between 1850 and 1853, Lowes Cato Dickinson studied art in Italy under the patronage of Sir Robert Michael Laffan, an Irish military officer and engineer.

Returning to England in 1853, Dickinson took a studio in Portland Place, London. Whilst working as an artist in London, he made the acquaintance of the artist Ford Madox Brown, the painter John Everett Millais, the artist and poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti, the writer and art critic William Michael Rosetti and other members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. On 15th October 1857, Lowes Cato Dickinson married Margaret Ellen Williams. At the time of his marriage, Lowes Cato Dickinson was an established portrait painter. When the 1861 census was taken, Lowes Cato Dickinson was residing with his wife (Margaret) Ellen and their two young children at Langham Chambers, Portland Place, St Marylebone, London. In 1864, he and his wife Margaret Ellen, along with three of their children, moved to the west London district of Hanwell in Middlesex.

(Biography provided by Robert Azensky Fine Art)