Palmer, Samuel 1805-81
English landscape painter and etcher

Born in London, he produced mainly watercolours in a mystical style derived from his friend William Blake (eg Repose of the Holy Family, 1824). From 1826 to 1835 he lived in Shoreham, Kent, where he was surrounded by a group of friends who called themselves 'The Ancients'. Palmer later visited Italy and began producing more academic, conventional work in a completely different style. He was thereafter forgotten until the Neo-Romantics - Graham Sutherland, John Minton and Paul Nash - rediscovered him during World War II, seeing in his work something essentially English but with overtones of Surrealism.