Edward Theodore Compton was born in Stoke Newington, London, on 27 July 1849, the son of Theodore Compton, a Quaker insurance agent and amateur artist, and his wife,
Elizabeth (née Harrison), the daughter of a Quaker barrister. In 1867, the family migrated to Darmstadt, Germany, which was then an important centre for the arts, so that Edward could complete his education. It is said that both Edward and his father went on to give lessons in art, and that Edward numbered among his students Alice, the daughter of the Grand Duke and Duchess of Hessen und bei Rhein. While living in Darmstadt, Edward went on a sketching tour of the Rhineland, Mosel and Eifel areas of Germany (1867-68), and, with his entire family, on a tour of the Bernese Oberland (July 1868).
As a result of these travels, and especially his sight of the peaks of the Eiger, Mönch and Jungfau, he decided to become a painter of mountains. He would become one of the first artists to devote himself to the remote and inaccessible Alpine heights.
In 1869, Compton moved to Munich, in Bavaria, which was another artistic centre, and two years later, he began to exhibit at the city’s Glaspalast. In 1872, he married the young Munich painter, Auguste Amalie Plötz (who was also known as Gusti von Romako). Together they would have three sons and two daughters, including the mountain painters, Edward Harrison Compton and Dora Keel-Compton, and the still life painter, Marion Compton. For two years, he and Auguste travelled through the Tyrol, Carinthia, Italy and Switzerland, and then, in 1874, settled at Feldafing, on Lake Starnberg, southwest of Munich. There, in the years 1877-78, they would build a comfortable home, the Villa Compton.
Retaining contact with Britain, Compton became a member of the Alpine Club in 1880 and, from that year, regularly contributed to such London exhibitions as those of the Royal Academy of Arts. In 1907, he and his son, E H Compton held a joint exhibition at the Fine Art Society. He also illustrated books for British publishers, including The Picturesque Mediterranean (Cassell, 1891, with others), his father’s A Mendip Valley (Edward Stanford, 1892) and J F Dickie’s Germany (A & C Black, 1912, with E H Compton). In addition, he produced guides for the Deutscher und Österreichischer Alpenverein, of which he was a member.
As a climber, Compton made some notable ascents, including Torre di Brenta and Cima di Brenta, both in 1882; and Aiguille Blanche de Peuterey, in 1905, and tours of the
Silvretta Mountains, in 1909, both with the mountaineer, Karl Blodig. Away from the Alps, he travelled and painted in Scandinavia, Spain, Corsica and North Africa.
During the First World War, Compton was invited by the Austrian Army Command to paint pictures of the mountain front. However, despite approval from Berlin, the Bavarian High Command forbade him to do so. He was also excluded from the artists’ association, Münchener Künstlergenossenschaft, because he was English.
Following the end of the war, Compton climbed Austria’s highest mountain, the Grossglockner, on the occasion of his seventieth birthday, in 1919. He died in Feldafing on 22 March 1921.
His work is represented in the collections of the Alpine Club.
Further reading:
Philip Alan Tallantire, Edward Theodore Compton (1849-1921): Mountaineer and Mountain Painter, P A Tallantire, 1996
