George Edward Horton (1859 - 1950)
The Wooden Bridge Bank, Bedford Street, North Shields

George Horton, a member of the Bewick Club and the Cullercoats Colony, was born in North Shields and, on leaving school became a delivery boy for his father, a butcher. His mother, bizarrely, asked him to leave home when she found him drawing an animal's skull. As he then decided to become a professional artist, having moved in with relatives, his mother's reaction did the art world a service! Horton exhibited widely in the North and moved to London in 1918. From the late 1890s he made regular trips to Holland. His work is very distinctive and has always been considered undervalued commercially. Hopefully the recent recognition and increase in value of works by the Staithes Group and linked Impressionist artists of the Bewick Club and Cullercoats Colony will lead to Horton's work receiving the acclaim it deserves