W. H. Bartlett Art

W. H. Bartlett (Born in 1809) was born in Kentish Town, London. His drawings are housed at University of Guelph (Guelph, Ont.), Art Gallery of Ontario (Toronto), the PAC, McLaughlin Library, National Gallery of Canada (Ottawa), and in England at Minet Library (London), the British Museum (London), Victoria and Albert Museum (London) and Northampton Public Library (Northampton). An artist from Britain, Bartlett is best known for his numerous steel engravings. Some engravings based on his ideas were used in “History of the United States of North America” after his death. The work was completed by Woodward Bolingbroke Bernard and published around 1856. Bartlett was apprenticed to Britton John, and became one of the foremost illustrators of topography of his generation. Bartlett himself wrote and illustrated 12 books, as well as the first 3 sections of “The history of the United States of North America” - the 1st volume. The remaining sections were completed by Bolingbroke Bernard Woodward. His aim was to produce art that clients could associate with. This is what made his art, especially the framed W. H. Bartlett art, to be in great demand. He could select his point of view so as to bring prominently into his art the cathedral or the castle, which antiquity or history had allowed. Bartlett copied and studied architectural drawings of the present and past and visited famous ruins in England. He traveled together with Britton, and he made detailed sketches to be engraved later for some of the publications by Britton. Initially his sketches were purely architectural, but later, the quality of the sketches changed to landscape.