James Stark

James Stark (1794 - 1859), English painter, was born in Norwich, and as he showed strong artistic inclinations early in life was, at the age of seventeen, articled to John Crome for three years.

He was elected in 1812 a member of the Norwich Society, to the exhibitions of which he had already contributed; but in 1817 he migrated to London and entered the Royal Academy Schools. He soon returned to Norwich and did not finally settle in the metropolis until 1830, though he was meanwhile a regular contributor to the British Institution and Suffolk Street Galleries. In 1840 he moved to Windsor, but after an interval of some years went back to London, where he died in 1859.

Between 1831 and 1859 most of his pictures were shown at the Royal Academy, though he still continued to exhibit occasionally in other galleries. He undertook in 1827 the publication of a work on "The Scenery of the Rivers of Norfolk", which was completed seven years later; the illustrations he prepared for it have much topographical and artistic interest and show well the better qualities of his work.

In his pictures the influence of Crome is plainly perceptible, and there is evidence also of his study of the Dutch landscape-painters; but he had little of Crome's largeness and power and his works charm rather by their gentle truth and quietness of manner than by their robustness of view or by their decisiveness of execution. There is one picture by him, "The Valley of the Yare," in the National Gallery of British Art.----