Alfred East was born in Lower Street, Kettering, Northamptonshire on 15 December 1849. He was the youngest of a family of eleven children, part of the East shoemaking dynasty. He taught drawing to his schoolmates while still in pinafores. At about the age of ten, he earned his first commission of five shillings for drawing a prehistoric animal for a geological lecturer. He drew and painted from an early age and this was continued when he was old enough to go to the Grammar School. However, neither school nor his family gave him any particular encouragement beyond that of recognising his talent. He commenced his working life in a shoe factory owned by his brother Charles. There he learned the rudiments of his management role in the world of boots and shoes, but his heart wasn’t in it. In 1874 having married Anne Heath, he was sent to Glasgow as the firm’s agent. However, coming into contact with some artists of that city, he determined to be an artist himself. He studied at the Government School of Art in Glasgow and attended night classes. He then went to Paris, where he received further training at the Ecole des Beaux Arts under Fleury and Bougereau. He returned to England in 1883, establishing studios in both London and Cornwall and exhibiting at the RA that same year. Over the next 30 years, he painted and travelled widely in Britain and Europe. His romantic landscapes demonstrate the influence of the Barbizon school. In April 1888 he had shared an exhibition at the galleries of the Fine Art Society with T C Gotch and W Ayerst Ingram, and was commissioned the following year by Marcus Huish, Managing Director of the Society, to spend six months in Japan to paint the landscape and the people of the country. When the exhibition of 104 paintings from this tour was held at the Fine Art Society in 1890 it was a spectacular success.East was for many years an exhibitor at the Paris Salon, obtaining a Mention Honorable at the Exposition Universelle of 1890. He ceased to exhibit at the old salon (Societie Des Arts Francais), and in 1905 became a member of the rival society (Societie des Beaux Arts). East was elected ARA in 1899 and RA in the year of his death. His book The Art of Landscape Painting in Oil Colour was published in 1906. In June of that year, he was elected President of the Royal Society of British Artists in succession to Sir Wyke Baylis (who had succeeded Whistler in 1889) and was knighted in the New Year’s Honours List in 1910. In April 1913 he offered to Kettering Urban District Council a collection of his pictures to be placed in an art gallery in that town. In a letter to the members of the council he wrote: ‘I should like to do this for two reasons: for the love I have of the old town, and also as an expression of gratitude for my recovery from a very serious illness. The collection would be composed of some of my most representative works both in oil and watercolour, and it would represent me at my best.’ This offer was accepted, and the Art Gallery was opened by Lord Spencer in July, but Sir Alfred was too unwell to be present himself. He died at his home in Belsize Park, London on 28 September 1913. His body was taken back to Kettering and lay in state in the Art Gallery, where it was surrounded by the pictures he had presented to the town, and attracted crowds of several thousands. His Boats in an Estuary is shown above. The Alfred East Art Gallery, designed by J A Gotch in Kettering is Northamptonshire’s oldest purpose-built art gallery. The Times of 21 September 1913 would note: ‘The landscapes of Sir Alfred East show good taste rather than original genius. They are always well composed and harmonious, if not vivid in colour. He was strongly influenced by French art, so that even his pictures of English country often have a foreign look. One feels that he chose a particular scene to paint, rather because it would make a good picture, than because he himself had a strong love of it. Thus his landscapes are apt to lack character, but they are far superior to those landscapes which merely try to remind us of things that are agreeable to us in reality. He was always an artist and made no concessions to vulgarity. In later years he became more adventurous and experimental. He aimed at a more precise definition of facts and conquered the tendency to repeat himself which had begun to be dangerous. Thus his later works, if more unequal than his earlier, are also more interesting. They prove that he was not content with easy success and that he was a genuine artist, if not a great one.’