Ruskin, John 1819-1900
English author and art critic

He was born in London, where he was tutored privately. In 1836 he went to Christ Church, Oxford, where he won the Newdigate prize for poetry. Shortly after graduating, he met J M W Turner and championed his painting in Modern Painters (1843-60). Along with The Seven Lamps of Architecture (1848) and The Stones of Venice (1851-53), this book established him as the major art and social critic of the day. In 1869 he became the first Slade Professor of Fine Art at Oxford. He settled at Coniston in the Lake District, and published various Slade lectures and Fors Clavigera, a series of papers addressed 'To the Workmen and Labourers of Great Britain' (1871-84). He founded the St George's Guild, a non-profit-making shop in Paddington Street in which members gave a tithe of their fortunes, the John Ruskin School at Camberwell, and the Whitelands College at Chelsea.