Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Picken, Andrew (1815-1845)
PICKEN, ANDREW (1815–1845), draughtsman and lithographer, second of the four sons of Andrew Picken (1788–1833) [q. v.] the novelist, was born in 1815. He became a pupil of Louis Haghe, and in 1835 received from the Society of Arts their silver Isis medal for a lithographic drawing of the ruins of the Houses of Parliament after the fire. In the same year he exhibited, at the Royal Academy, a view of a tomb in Narbonne Cathedral. Picken then established himself as a lithographer, and had already earned a reputation by the excellent quality of his work when in 1837 his health, which had always been delicate, broke down, and, his lungs being affected, he was sent to Madeira. During a residence there of two years he drew a series of views of the island, which, on his return to England, were published under the title ‘Madeira Illustrated,’ 1840, with interesting letterpress edited from his notes by Dr. James Macaulay. To this fine work, which is now scarce, was due much of the subsequent popularity of Madeira as a health resort. After a short interval Picken found it necessary to revisit Madeira; but his disease making rapid progress, he came back to London, and died there on 24 June 1845. During his brief career Picken executed on stone a large number of landscapes, chiefly illustrations to books of travel and private commissions. His youngest brother, Thomas, was also a landscape lithographer, and did much good work for Roberts's ‘Holy Land,’ 1855; Payne's ‘English Lake Scenery,’ 1856; ‘Scotland Delineated,’ and other works. In 1879 he became an inmate of the Charterhouse, London.
[Art Union, 1845, p. 263; Memoir of E. and A. Picken, by R. Brown, 1879 (Paisley Burns Club publications).]