Charles Pears was one of the standard-bearers who carried the nineteenth-century achievements well into the twentieth century. Charles Pears was born in Pontefract, Yorkshire on September 9th, 1873 and was educated at East Hardwick and Pomfret College and later became a professional illustrator who regularly contributed to the Illustrated London News, Graphic and Punch.

Among the books he illustrated were Masefield’s Salt Water Ballads and the complete works of Charles Dickens.

During the First World War, he held a commission in the Royal Marines and was also an official war artist to the Admiralty. In the Second World War, he worked for the War Artists’ Commission. He was a keen yachtsman and an expert on ships and brought a high degree of technical accuracy to his work.

He had an unusual technique in the handling of water, evidently based on that of Canaletto. He was the first president of the Society of Naval Artists. His style was usually realistic and exact in a way, which would have been thoroughly approved by the Pre-Raphaelites or some of the later Victorian subject painters. Sometimes, however, he painted with broader strokes and looser texture with equally pleasing results. He died in Truro, Cornwall in January 1958.

Twelve of the artist’s paintings are in the permanent collection at The National Maritime Museum, and his First World War pictures are in the Imperial War Museum.