George Clint

George Clint
Self-portrait by George Clint
Born	12 April 1770 Covent Garden, London
Died	10 May 1854(1854-05-10) (aged 84) Kensington, London
Nationality	English
Occupation	Painter, engraver
Children	Scipio Clint, Raphael Clint, Alfred Clint

George Clint RA (12 April 1770 – 10 May 1854) was an English portrait painter and engraver, especially notable for his many theatrical subjects.

Clint was born in Brownlow Street, Drury Lane, Covent Garden, London, the son of Michael Clint, a hairdresser in Lombard Street. He went to school in Yorkshire and was then apprenticed to a fishmonger, but left after a violent dispute with his employer. He found alternative employment in an attorney's office, but took exception to the work and became a house-painter instead - one of his jobs was painting the stones of the arches in the nave of Westminster Abbey. He also decorated the exterior of a house built by Sir Christopher Wren in Cheapside, and was later employed by the bookseller Thomas Tegg.

He married the daughter of a small farmer in Berkshire; they had five sons and four daughters. His wife died a fortnight after giving birth to their son Alfred, who also became an artist.

Clint took up miniature painting. He had a studio in Leadenhall Street, and he became acquainted with the publisher John Bell, whose nephew, the mezzotint engraver Edward Bell, taught Clint the art of engraving. His first in oil painting was a portrait of his wife. At this period Samuel Reynolds, the engraver, advised him to undertake watercolour portraits. Commissions proving scarce, he made copies, in colour, from prints after George Morland and Teniers; he reproduced Morland's The Enraged Bull and The Horse struck by Lightning several times.