Oil On Canvas Portrait By Bertram Priestman RA, Exhibited Royal Academy 1890

An early and important portrait by Bertram Priestman RA (1868–1951), exhibited at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition of 1890 when the artist was just twenty‑one.

The sitter, an old soldier from Chelsea, almost certainly a Chelsea Pensioner, is captured in profile with striking atmosphere and sensitivity.

Remarkably well executed for such a young hand, the work shows Priestman’s natural command of tone and character, catching the sitter with quiet dignity and an unforced realism.

Later elected to the Royal Academy in 1923 and long regarded as “a painter’s painter”, Priestman is best known for his landscapes, making this rare early RA‑exhibited portrait especially desirable.

Bertram Walter Priestman RA (1868–1951) was born in Bradford into a prominent Quaker family and educated at Friends’ schools in Scarborough and York. Initially trained in engineering, he soon turned fully to art, studying under Edwin Moore and later at the Slade School of Fine Art with Alphonse Legros. He also worked as studio assistant to Sir William Llewellyn.

Priestman began exhibiting young, showing at the Liverpool Academy from 1888 and at the Royal Academy from 1890. He became a member of the Royal Society of British Artists (1894), the New English Art Club (1896), the Royal Institute of Oil Painters (1910), was elected Associate of the Royal Academy in 1916 and a full Academician in 1923.

A committed landscape painter, he worked widely across East Anglia and kept studios in Chelsea and later Walberswick, where he taught pupils including Edward Seago. His work is represented in public collections in Bradford, Leeds, Birmingham and other UK galleries. Priestman spent his later years in Sussex and died at Crowborough in 1951.