John Crome was born on 22 December 1768 in
Norwich, and baptised on 25 December at
St George's Church, Tombland, Norwich. He was the son of John Crome, a
weaver (who is also described as either an innkeeper or a lodger at a Norwich
inn), and his wife Elizabeth. After a period working as an errand boy for a doctor (from the age of 12), he was apprenticed to Francis Whisler, a house, coach and
sign painter. At about this time he formed a friendship with
Robert Ladbrooke, then an
apprentice printer. They shared a room and went on sketching trips in the fields and lanes around Norwich. They occasionally bought
prints to copy. Crome and Ladbrooke sold some of their work to a local printseller, Smith and Jaggars, and it was probably through the print-seller that Crome met Thomas Harvey of
Old Catton, who helped him set to up as a drawing teacher. Crome had access to Harvey's art collection, which allowed him to develop his skills by copying the works of
Thomas Gainsborough and
Meindert Hobbema. Crome received further instruction and encouragement from the artist
John Opie, and the English portraitist
William Beechey, whose house in London he frequently visited. In October 1792 Crome married Phoebe Berney. They produced two daughters and six sons, two of whom,
John Berney Crome and
William Henry Crome became landscape painters. In 1803 Crome and Ladbrooke formed the Norwich Society of Artists, a group that also included
Robert Dixon,
Charles Hodgson,
Daniel Coppin,
James Stark and
George Vincent. Their first exhibition was in 1805; it marked the start of the
Norwich School of painters, the first art movement created outside London. Crome contributed 22 works to its first
exhibition, held in 1805. He served as President of the Society several times and held the position at the time of his death. With the exception of the times when he made short visits to London, he had little or no communication with the great artists of his own time. He exhibited 13 works at the
Royal Academy between 1806 and 1818. He visited Paris in 1814, following the defeat of
Napoleon, and later exhibited views of Paris,
Boulogne, and
Ostend. Most of his subjects were of scenes in
Norfolk. Crome was drawing master at
Norwich School for many years. Several members of the Norwich School art movement were educated at the school and were taught by him, including Stark and
Edward Thomas Daniell. He also taught privately, his pupils including members of the influential
Gurney family, whom he stayed with whilst in the
Lake District in 1802. He died at his house in Gildengate, Norwich, on 22 April 1821, and was buried in
St. George's Church. On his death-bed he is said to have gasped, "Oh Hobbema, my dear Hobbema, how I have loved you". A memorial exhibition of more than 100 of his works was held in November that year by the Norwich Society of Artists.
Crome's Broad and nearby Crome's Farm in
The Broads National Park are named after him. The area surrounding
Heartsease is covered by the Crome ward and division on
Norwich City Council and
Norfolk County Council respectively. An incident in Crome's life was the subject of the one-act
opera Twice in a Blue Moon by
Phyllis Tate, to a
libretto by
Christopher Hassall: it was first performed in 1969. In the story Crome and his wife split one of his paintings in two to sell each half at the Norwich Fair. ==Works==