George Cumberland
| George Cumberland | |
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Cumberland's The Conjugal Union of Cupid, from Thoughts on Outline (1796, etched by William Blake)
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| Born |
27 November 1754 London |
| Died | 8 August 1848 (aged 93) Bristol |
| Nationality | English |
| Occupation | Art collector, writer, poet, printmaker, watercolourist |
George Cumberland (1754–1848) was an English art collector, writer and poet. He was a lifelong friend and supporter of William Blake, and like him was an experimental printmaker. He was also an amateur watercolourist, and one of the earliest members of the Bristol School of artists. He made use of his wide circle of connections to help its other members, in particular assisting and influencing Edward Bird and Francis Danby.
Cumberland, whose father was also called George, was born in London in 1754. From 1769–85 he was an insurance clerk with the Royal Exchange Assurance Corporation. In 1772 he also attended the Royal Academy Schools and exhibited at the Academy in 1782 and 1783, but failed to be elected an Associate in 1784. He formed a low opinion of the Academy and attacked it in various essays.
Along with John Flaxman and Thomas Stothard, Cumberland joined the social circle of William Blake within a year of Blake becoming a student at the Royal Academy Schools in 1779. This circle also included the engraver William Sharp. The young Cumberland held radical views; with Stothard and Sharp, he joined the Society for Constitutional Information, becoming a friend of its leader, John Horne Tooke, and attracting the attention of government spies. However when Cumberland witnessed the Gordon Riots of 1780 at first hand, he reacted with horror.
Cumberland was to be a lifelong friend and supporter of Blake. As early as 1780 a contribution by Cumberland to the Morning Chronicle praised Blake's first exhibit at the Academy, the watercolour The Death of Earl Goodwin. Cumberland would often seek to provide clients for Blake, as in 1798 when he tried to persuade Tooke to use Blake as the engraver for a new edition of Tooke's book Diversions of Purleigh.
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