The Victorian artist John Atkinson Grimshaw was a Leeds born painter of landscapes, town views and dockyards, especially at sunset or by moonlight. John Atkinson Grimshaw first began painting while working as a clerk for the Great Northern Railway. Towns and docks featured heavily in his highly atmospheric paintings. He painted famous dockyard scenes including Glasgow Docks, Liverpool Docks as well as a number of painting focussed on Leeds, Scarborough, Whitby and London. John Atkinson Grimshaw's artistic style and subject matter changed very little during his painting career; he strove constantly to perfect his own individual vision. He was interested in photography, and sometimes used a camera obscure to project outlines on to canvas, enabling him to repeat compositions several times. He also mixed sand and other ingredients with his paint to get the art effects he wanted. Although John Atkinson Grimshaw's moonlit towns scenes remain his most popular works, he also painted landscapes, interiors and fairy prints.
