Pine, Robert Edge

c.1730

1788

Born in London, Robert Edge Pine was son of an engraver. Waterhouse points out that he was ‘one of the first to do portraits of actors in character parts.’ His two portraits of Garrick in the Club’s collection are weak derivatives of the painting in the National Portrait Gallery. He painted a powerful, rather weird and unflattering portrait of George II as well as a number of subject paintings, some with political undertones; those activities probably excluded him from being numbered among the Founder Members of the Royal Academy. He did, however, exhibit there on three occasions, over the period 1772 to 1784, after he had left the Society of Artists following an insulting remark from its President. In 1773 he left England and settled in Philadelphia, where he died five years later.