William RUSSELL FLINT (1880-1969) ✿

Silver and Gold, 1931 (detail)

Sir William Russell Flint is perhaps the most famous of the watercolour artists working in Britain in the first half of last Century. Was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, on April 4, 1880. He first attended school at Miss Clinkscales' Seminary at Portobello, advanced to Daniel Stewart's College for Boys in Edinburgh, and later studied at the Royal Institute of Art at Edinburgh. Between 1894 and 1900 Flint served an apprenticeship as a lithographic artist and designer in a printing house in Edinburgh. He was the son of Francis Wighton Flint, and studied at the Edinburgh School of Art and Heatherley, London. He later joined the staff of Illustrated London News, (1904 - 1908), and then served in World War I in the R.N.V.R. and R.A.F.; before devoting the rest of his life to art as a painter, illustrator, medical illustrator and lithographer. In 1907 Flint became a freelance artist and by 1914 had become an Associate of the Royal Society of Painters in Water Colours. He was made Associate of the Royal Academy in 1924 and a full Academician in 1933. He received a knighthood in 1947. Flint died on December 30, 1969 at the age of 89.