Alfred Priest

Alfred Priest (12 December 1810 – 1850) was an English painter of landscapes and a member of the Norwich School of painters.

Priest was born in Norwich on 12 December 1810, the son of John Fox Priest and his wife Elizabeth Neal (née Raven), and was baptised at St Gregory's Church, Norwich two days later. His father was a chemist, who educated him to follow his profession. Acting against his father's wishes, he left Norwich. He returned to his home city after a period at sea and then briefly worked as an apprentice to a surgeon in the nearby town of Downham Market. He studied etching under the water-colourists Henry Ninham and James Stark, and the etcher E. W. Cooke. He specialised in marine painting and is noted for his depictions of water and waves. He moved to London in 1835, but returned to Norwich in 1848, living there for a further two years before he died of tuberculosis in 1850, aged about 40.

Priest exhibited at the Society of British Artists in 1837 and 1838, and at the Royal Academy in 1939, painting river scenes so as to demonstrate his ability to depict flowing water. The works he exhibited were Scene at Taverham, Norfolk, Water Mill, Maple Durham, near Reading and Iffley Mill, near Oxford.

His choice of subject matter in his oil paintings and watercolours was shared with Miles Edmund Cotman, who visited him in Reading, and it seems that the artists worked closely together for a period. During the 1840s their styles diverged, with Priest working less meticulously than his colleague.

• Moore, Andrew W. (1985). The Norwich School of Artists. HMSO/Norwich Museums Service.
• Walpole, Josephine (1997). Art and Artists of the Norwich School. Woodbridge: Antique Collectors' Club. ISBN 1-85149-261-5.