Description
The brother of William Leighton Leitch, Richard Principal Leitch was best known as a painter of river and coastal scenes, especially of the Thames and the coasts of France and Holland.
He also painted more formalised landscapes, using a characteristic grey to represent shadows. His work was exhibited from 1840 at leading London venues, including ten pictures at the Royal Academy and five at the Royal Society of British Artists. He also worked as a prolific illustrator and successful drawing master. He wrote several instructional books, including one, Easy Studies in Water-Colour Painting (1881), which was jointly authored with John Callow.
Brand
Leitch, Richard Principal (1827-1882)
The son of the painter and drawing-master, William Leighton Leitch (1804–1883). Richard P. Leitch was a landscape painter, an excellent water-colour painter and a good draughtsman on wood’ (MacGeorge, 112), he exhibited between 1844 and 1860 at the Royal Academy as R. Leitch Junior, at first from his father's address. His View on the River Limpopo with a Herd of Hippopotami (reproduced in the Illustrated London News of 5 January 1856) was among scenes painted for Gordon Cumming's South African Entertainment at 232 Piccadilly, London, in 1856. He also signed an engraving based on one of Charles Wirgman's watercolour sketches of China in the Illustrated London News (1857–8).
