Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Carmichael, James Wilson

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CARMICHAEL, JAMES WILSON (1800–1868), marine painter, was born at Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 1800. At about the age of ten or eleven he went to sea. He returned, and was apprenticed to a shipbuilder, who employed him in drawing an designing, a early works are in water colours, but about 1825 he began also to paint in oils. Between 1838 and 1862 he was a frequent exhibitor at the Royal Academy at the British Institute, and at the Suffolk Street Gallery. He made his first public appearance in the farmer year with a picture of ‘Shipping in the Bay of Naples,’ contributed to the exhibition of the Society of British Artists. In 1841 he sent to the Academy a drawing of the ‘Conqueror towing the Africa off the Shoals of Trafalgar,’ and in 1843 two drawings, ‘The Royal Yacht with the Queen on board off Edinburgh,’ and the ‘Arrival of the Royal Squadron.’ In the Water-Colour Collection at South Kensington there is one example of this painter, ‘The Houses of Parliament in course of Erection.’ About 1845, according to Redgrave, he left Newcastle for London. Probably about 1862 (at which date he ceased to exhibit in London) he went to Scarborough, and there died on May 1868. In the north of England his work was highly thought of. There is a large painting by him in the Trinity House, Newcastle, ‘The Heroic Exploit of Admiral Collingwood at the Battle of Trafalgar.’ He appears as an author, having published ‘The Art of Marine Painting in Water Colours,’ 1859, and ‘The Art of Marine Painting in Oil Colours,’ 1864.

[Redgrave's Dict. of Artists; Graves's Dict. of Artists; Cat. Engl. Coll. South Kensington Museum.]