Anthony Devis

Who was Anthony Devis?

Anthony Devis was an English landscape painter.

Anthony Devis was born in Preston, Lancashire. His father's name was also Anthony Devis, who was a carpenter and town councillor in the town. Anthony junior was the older of two sons of his father's second marriage, to Anne Blackburne. His father also had two sons by his first marriage, to Ellin Rauthmell, the older of whom was the portrait painter Arthur Devis. He did not marry.

In the 1742 Preston Guild Roll he was described as being a painter in London, but no work by him has been dated before 1760. Between 1760 and 1780 he produced many landscape paintings, mainly for landowners in Northern England. He exhibited paintings at the Free Society of Artists in 1761 and 1763, and at the Royal Academy in 1772 and 1781. Most of his paintings were topographical, although later in his career he did produce some idealised views containing classical features. In 1780 he retired to Albury House near Guildford, Surrey where he made a collection of paintings and curios. He also built a painting-room on a hill near Albury. Devis died in 1816 and was buried at Albury Old Church.