John Constable, a landscape painter whose paintings of clouds were informed by Luke Howard, spent over two weeks during June and July 1806 at Markfield House, Tottenham, as a guest of William Hobson. He made a number of sketches of William Hobson, his wife, and at least six of their sixteen children many of which can be seen in two intact sketchbooks (one in the Louvre, the other at Yale). Above is one of John Constable’s Cloud studies.
In a letter on 12 December 1836 Constable wrote from London to his son, George Constable, in Arundel:
My observations on clouds and skies are on scraps and bits of paper, and I have never yet put them together so as to form a lecture, which I shall do, and probably deliver at Hampstead next summer.
He did not live to see the next summer. John Constable died in London on 31 March 1837.
In a letter on 12 December 1836 Constable wrote from London to his son, George Constable, in Arundel:
My observations on clouds and skies are on scraps and bits of paper, and I have never yet put them together so as to form a lecture, which I shall do, and probably deliver at Hampstead next summer.
He did not live to see the next summer. John Constable died in London on 31 March 1837.
Howard Hodgkin, named after his distant relation Luke Howard, died on 9 March 2017. Above his print 'After Luke Howard (from For John Constable)'
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To find out about Constable’s other connections to Tottenham click here
There was an exhibition of his work Constable: The Making of a Master on at the V&A from September 2014 – January 2015 which included oil sketches he painted outdoors direct from nature including many of clouds.
