Algernon Newton was born at Hampstead, London on 23 February 1880. His grandfather, the artist Henry Charles Newton, was co-founder of the Winsor & Newton art-supply company. Algernon studied at Clare College, Cambridge and subsequently attended Frank Calderon’s School of Animal Painting, while also attending classes at the Slade and at the South Kensington School of Art.  He first exhibited at the RA in 1903. Newton almost died from pneumonia contracted whilst serving in the army in 1916 and spent time recovering in Cornwall, before returning to London in 1919. He studied the paintings in the National Gallery and came to believe that the Old Masters ‘worked from memory and used their imagination much more than we do’. When he began to paint, he worked hard to find his way, painting watercolours in the style of Sandby and Cox, until he was able to faithfully reproduce the style epitomised by the greatest artists of the 18th century. But they were not pastiches, rather they were powerful works in their own right. In 1923 Newton began producing his striking architectural views of London, the work for which he is best known. He focused on the derelict warehouses, factories and once stylish homes around the Regent’s Canal, saying that poorer districts seemed: ‘so much more beautiful than the West End of London, there was more of the individual character of London there, far more mental atmosphere and a certain sadness made up of human associations hung over the sordid streets and backwaters of London.’ His haunting north London street scenes have a strange power, are notable for the precision with which they are painted and for the unnatural stillness they evoke, a quality emphasised by them being almost always night scenes. He developed a technique based on his study of the work of Canaletto (1697-1768) – underpainting with cool grey for shadows and warm gold for sunlight. The results are reticent, contemplative, and slightly uncanny. Devoid of human beings they assume the same surreal quality of the ideal cities of Urbino. Newton was known as ‘the Camden Canaletto’ and he produced highly romanticised views of London in the 18th century style. Having won fame and success he later reflected, ‘I felt I must try to create something in every picture I painted, a mood, a mental atmosphere, a sentiment’. In 1923 he began producing his architectural views of London, the work for which he is best-known. These paintings are notable for the precision with which they were executed and for the unnatural stillness they evoke, a quality emphasised by them being almost always night scenes. In the post-war period, a number of painters across Europe began using an apparently academic-realist manner to produce pictures of startling modernity. They included the Surrealists in France, the Metaphysical Painters in Italy and, in particular, the German painters of The New Objectivity (or Magic Realism), such as Max Beckmann and Otto Dix. In England, artists like Meredith Frampton, Gerald Brockhurst and Newton developed their own variations of the style. Although these artists differed considerably in both their aims and the degree of experimentation in their work, they are, nevertheless, subtly linked by their use of a flawless traditional technique to depict modern subject matter. Newton’s first one-man show was at the Leicester Galleries in 1931. In 1934 Newton was one of more than 30 artists commissioned to carry out the interior adornment of the Cunard liner RMS QUEEN MARY. He painted Evening on the Avon for the ‘Regent Room’ of the liner. In 1941 he escaped war-torn London and moved to Beck Hole in North Yorkshire, where he took up residence at the Nelson Inn, which he converted into his studio. Whilst living there, he painted the inn sign for the nearby Birch Hall Inn. Newton was elected ARA 1936 and RA in 1943. His oil The Regent’s Canal, Paddington (1930) was the largest of Newton’s London scenes. It was ‘skied’ (hung very high) when exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1930 and a furious Newton vowed never to show there again. However, he began to exhibit again four years later. When Newton was elected RA, it was therefore not without a touch of humour that he submitted that self-same painting as his Diploma Work. In 1947 he was appointed a Vice President of the Inland Waterways Association, a position he held for the rest of his life. Newton died in London on 21 May 1968. His son was the noted actor and legendary hell-raiser Robert Newton (1905-56).