Francis Wheatley is best known as a painter of landscapes, portraits and figures in a sentimental and pretty style. His most popular and notable works were the Cries of London, a series of fourteen paintings of London street scenes which were then engraved and published in pairs. Wheatley was born in London in 1747 and was the son of a Master Tailor. He was introduced to the study of drawing via his neighbour, Daniel Fournier, a drawing-master and artist. His father then moved him to William Shipley’s Academy in London, a prodigious drawing school which later became Ackermann's Repository of Arts. During his time studying at Shipley’s, Francis Wheatley was awarded several prizes by the Society of Arts, including a prize for figurative drawing for students under the age of sixteen.
Francis Wheatley first exhibited with the Society of Artists in 1765 with Portrait of a Gentleman, and later became a member in 1770 and then director in 1774.
He enrolled at the Royal Academy Schools in 1769 and swiftly built a reputation as a skilled painter. He established a friendship with the artist John Hamilton Mortimer who greatly influenced his work; it has been suggested by Francis Wheatley’s obituarist in the Gentleman’s Magazine that through his friendship with Mortimer his work ‘acquired a style more pure’.
In 1778 Wheatley exhibited for the first time at the Royal Academy, amongst the five paintings displayed were A wood scene, with gypsies telling a fortune and View near Ivy Bridge, Devonshire. Despite his artistic abilities and growing reputation, Wheatley fell into significant debt. In 1779 he seduced the wife of the artist Alexander Gresse and fled with her to Ireland to escape his creditors. Whilst in Dublin he painted The Irish House of Commons, which was received very well, as well as several portraits of political figures. In 1783 he was forced to return to London when his seduction and elopement with Mrs Gresse became known, he had been pretending she was his wife whilst in Ireland. Wheatley married artist Clara Maria Leigh in 1786 and they had four daughters. Once back in London, having fallen into debt again, he approached the publisher and print seller John Boydell for work. Whilst working under Boydell’s patronage Wheatley created the work that he is perhaps best known for, the Cries of London, made up of fourteen paintings designed for engraving. They depict predominantly pretty female merchants and street vendors, in a sentimental in style.
Wheatley exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy throughout his life, he was elected an associate of the Royal Academy in 1790 and then Royal Academician in 1791. He continued to be plagued with debt for the rest of his life in addition to suffering ill health. His chronic gout during the 1790’s meant he was unable to work for long periods at a time, his ‘youthful irregularity and temperance’ was cited as the cause. He taught his wife, Clara Maria Leigh, to paint and draw so that she could support herself and their four children during his periods of debilitating illness. Francis Wheatley died in 1801 aged 54.
