John Varley I - Artist Info

About John Varley I

  • Biography

    John Varley (17 August 1778 - 17 November 1842) was an English watercolour painter and astrologer, and a close friend of William Blake. They collaborated in 1819-1820 on the book Visionary Heads, illustrated by Blake and written by Varley, who was the elder brother of Cornelius Varley.

    John Varley was born at the Old Blue Post Tavern, Hackney, on 17 August 1778. His father, Richard Varley, born at Epworth in Lincolnshire, had settled in London after the death of his first wife in Yorkshire. For a brief time John Varley was employed by a portrait painter in Holborn and then, at the age of 15 or 16, he became a pupil of Joseph Charles Barrow (fl. 1789-1802), who had an evening drawing school twice a week at 12 Furnival's Inn Cou...

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