James Orrock 1829-1913
A significant collector of English pictures, James Orrock became a skilled and prolific watercolourist in an early nineteenth-century style.

The son of a dentist, James Orrock was born in Edinburgh. He was educated at Irvine, Ayrshire, and at Edinburgh University where he read surgery and dentistry. He had a dental practice in Nottingham for several years before he began to work full-time as an artist. He studied under James Ferguson and John Burgess in Leicester, and under Stewart Smith at the Nottingham School of Design. He began to exhibit at the Royal Academy in 1858, and eight years later moved to London, living in Bedford Square, Bloomsbury and taking lessons from W L Leitch.

A painter of landscapes in oil and watercolour, Orrock exhibited at London societies and dealers, including the Fine Art Society (1893) and the Leicester Galleries, and in provincial centres. He was elected an associate of the New Society of Painters in Water-Colours in 1871, and a full member in 1875 (the society became the Royal Institute of Painters in Water-Colours in 1884). He was also elected to the membership of the Royal Institute of Painters in Oils (1883). He wrote and lectured on art, and was an eminent collector of Constable and other artists. Late in his career, he illustrated some books: W S Crockett's In the Border Country (1906), W S Sparrow's Mary Queen of Scots (1906) and Old England (1908). He died on 10 May 1913 at Shepperton, Middlesex.
Dimensions:25" x 18.75" with Frame. Victorian Water color.