35 Facts About Obadiah Short

Obadiah Short was an amateur British painter of landscapes.

Obadiah Short is associated with the Norwich School of painters, which was the first provincial art movement in Britain.

Obadiah Short wrote a detailed account of his childhood memories and produced accurate paintings of Norwich scenes, both of which have provided historians with a record of the city he lived in all his life.

The young Obadiah was brought up by his grandparents, and worked as a Norwich textile labourer before learning the trade of a weaver.

Obadiah Short was associated with the Norwich School of painters, a group of artists connected both by geographical location and their depictions of Norfolk landscapes, as well as by personal and professional relationships.

Unlike most of the Norfolk-based members of the Norwich School of painters, Obadiah Short never belonged to the Norwich Society of Artists.

Obadiah Short was born on 26 July 1803 in a house close to Bethel Yard, Norwich, the son of Joseph Short and Elizabeth Cubitt.

Later in life, Obadiah Short recalled his childhood, writing down his memories in a small leather-bound book, now in the Norfolk Museums Collections at Norwich Castle.

Obadiah Short's Recollections have provided modern historians with a link to the past and allowed the revival of previously forgotten traditions, such as wassailing.

Obadiah Short was paid to turn a cord wheel, for a master who treated him with relative kindness.

Obadiah Short later worked for another master, running errands and polishing boots.

Obadiah Short's book recollects his memories of his parents and of what he was told about their fate.

Obadiah Short wrote in Recollections that in 1808 straitened circumstances forced his father to become a substitute soldier in the East Norfolk Militia.

Obadiah Short travelled that year to Spain as a regimental sergeant in Sir John Moore's army, along with Elizabeth, who came with her husband as a camp follower.

Obadiah Short worked as a weaver from the age of about thirteen, and learnt to weave bombazine.

Not all were locally based employees, or noted artists, as was the case with Obadiah Short, who remained with the same firm for 50 years.

Obadiah Short married Susanna Kyburt at St Saviour's Church in 1821.

Short's second son Obadiah followed him in the textile trade and became a designer's assistant.

Susan Obadiah Short died in 1871, having been married for fifty years.

Some time after 1829 Obadiah Short saw an artist named Harbord copying a work by Crome, an encounter that may be why he began to sketch and paint.

Obadiah Short was acquainted with the artist Edmund Sparshall, a local patron of the arts, who lent him pictures by Stark to copy.

Obadiah Short was influenced strongly by the works of both these artists.

In 1832, Crome's physician the Norwich surgeon William Dalrymple took an interest in Obadiah Short and provided him with a letter of introduction to give to the Earl of Leicester.

Obadiah Short then walked over 30 miles from Norwich to the Earl's stately home, Holkham Hall.

That year Obadiah Short was commissioned by Dalrymple to draw birds for Norwich's Castle Museum, and draw pathological subjects for the students of the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital, which were kept in Dalrymple's museum of pathological specimens.

Obadiah Short learnt the art of landscape painting by copying the works of Old Masters such as those at Holkham; his artistic style probably originated from his access to the Earl of Leicester's collection.

Obadiah Short was influenced by the artist Alfred Priest, whom he met in about 1851, and possibly the London-born water colourist John Varley.

Obadiah Short was commissioned to produce the drawings; he included O Obadiah Short, del.

Obadiah Short's output was limited by being fully employed during his adult life.

Obadiah Short first gained public recognition when three oil paintings and a watercolour, Landscape at Costessy, Norfolk, were shown.

Clifford rated him as a "pleasing minor talent" and the author Harold Day wrote that Obadiah Short produced paintings that were charming, while describing him as "not one of the great men of the Norwich School".

Several of Obadiah Short's paintings show buildings which have since been demolished; such works are now a source of information for historians.

Obadiah Short's painting of one of the Norwich's towers was used in Norwich City Council's survey of its city walls.

Obadiah Short died peacefully on 15 July 1886 at Heigham, Norwich, aged 82.

Obadiah Short's obituary, published in the Bury and Norwich Post a few days after his death, asked its readers to appreciate "a life not barren of interest to those who care to mark the events of a well-spent career", and "to notice the success of perseverance under difficulties".