Dictionary of National Biography, 1927 supplement/East, Alfred
EAST, Sir ALFRED (1849-1913), painter and etcher, was born at Kettering 15 December 1849, the youngest son of Benjamin East, who was in the Kettering boot trade, by his wife Elizabeth Wright. He was educated at Kettering grammar school, and at the age of twenty-five (1875) entered the government school of art in Glasgow. He subsequently studied in Paris at the École des Beaux-Arts and the Académie Julian under Tony Robert-Fleury and Adolphe William Bouguereau. On his return from France East lived for a time in Glasgow and then settled in London; he made, however, frequent journeys abroad, including a noteworthy visit to Japan in 1889. He exhibited for the first time at the Royal Academy in 1883, showing ‘A Dewy Morning’, painted at Barbizon the previous year. He was ever afterwards a regular exhibitor at Burlington House, and his work was also to be seen in other London exhibitions, notably those of the Royal Society of British Artists, of which he was elected president in 1906, and of the Society of Painter-Etchers. East was also a frequent contributor to art exhibitions abroad, and gained many distinctions, among them the gold medal at the Paris exhibition of 1900. He was elected A.R.A. in 1899 and R.A. in 1913, a few months before his death; he was also an honorary member of several foreign art academies and societies. He was knighted in 1910, and was awarded by the Italian government the decoration of cavaliere of the crown of Italy for his services in connexion with the Venice international exhibition in 1903. His self-portrait was ordered for the celebrated collection of artists autoritratti of the Uffizi Gallery at Florence; (this collection is at present housed in the Pitti Palace).
In his art East is, first and foremost, an interpreter of landscape. His sensitiveness to the moods of nature is very keen, and although he mostly expresses himself in a quiet, idyllic vein, a more dramatic expression is not outside his range. As a painter East did not undergo a long evolution which can be followed step by step; but, at the same time, his art never became a slave to convention. His qualities of design, drawing, colouring, and atmosphere all attain a uniform level of excellence; and, altogether, his pictures are entitled to rank among the most distinguished products of English academic art of his period.
East is not, up to the present, represented at the National Gallery of British Art at Millbank (Tate Gallery), but pictures by him may be seen in a number of English provincial galleries; Manchester owns ‘The Silent Somme’ and ‘Autumn’, Liverpool ‘Gibraltar from Algeciras’, and Birmingham ‘Hayle from Lelant’. His ‘Passing Storm’ is at the Luxembourg, Paris; ‘The Nene Valley’ at the Gallery of Modern Art, Venice ; ‘Returning from Church’ at the Carnegie Art Gallery, Pittsburg, U.S.A., and ‘The Morning Moon’ at the Art Institute, Chicago. Shortly before his death East presented a collection of his works to his native town, Kettering, where they are housed in a special building.
The etchings of East form a distinguished section of his work. About the year 1902 he began to devote himself with particular interest to this branch of art, adopting a very vigorous style and working on zinc or copper plates of considerable size. East was also active as a writer; The Art of Landscape Painting in Oil Colour (1906) is especially noteworthy for its excellent practical advice.
East married in 1874 Annie, daughter of Henry Heath, of High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire; they had one son and four daughters. He died in London 28 September 1913.
[The Studio, vols. vii, 133-42, 1896, liv, 259-68, 1912, and xxxiv, 124-37, 1905; Die Graphischen Künste, vol. xxxvi, 12-20, 1913; U. Thieme and F. Becker, Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Kunstler, vol. x, 1914.]