Nathaniel Sparks RE

1880 - 1956

The second son of a violin restorer, Nathaniel Sparks attended Bristol College of Art in 1900, winning a scholarship to study at the Royal College of Art, where Frank Short was Head of the Engraving School. While there, Sparks was commissioned by James McNeil Whistler to print his "Venice Set", and in 1905, he received a Diploma in Decorative Painting from the Royal Academy and was elected to the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers and Engravers (RE). Sparks went on to exhibit many etchings at the Academy and the RE, but by 1915 he was working for munitions factories. After the War, he struggled to revive his career as a printmaker and turned to watercolour painting. In 1940, his printing press was destroyed by a German bomb.

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