Augustus Charles Wyatt Biography

Augustus Charles Wyatt (1865–1933) was an English painter known for his depictions of gardens, flowers and carefully arranged planting. Born in Kennington, south London, he developed a particular interest in the colours and textures of cultivated gardens, recording both individual flowers and larger garden settings.

Wyatt exhibited at the Royal Academy, the Royal Society of British Artists and the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours, as well as at Walker's Gallery in London. He also showed work at the Royal International Horticultural Exhibition of 1912, where he received a prize. His pictures demonstrate the appeal of flower gardens as a subject at a time when gardening and garden design attracted a wide public readership.

One of the locations he depicted was Ann Hathaway's Cottage, at Shottery near Stratford-upon-Avon, traditionally associated with Shakespeare's wife. He also produced an illustration of the phlox and tall standards of the Dorothy Perkins rose in its garden. His interest in the site combined the picturesque character of the old timber-framed house with the colours of its flowering borders.

Wyatt married Kathleen Sophia Sapwell in 1899 in Hampshire, and they had at least one child, Kenneth, born in 1901.

In 1913 Wyatt emigrated to Montecito, California, but continued to travel and paint widely. His subjects included gardens and scenery in New England, South Carolina and Hawaii. He died in California in 1933.

Wyatt's surviving work is particularly associated with the detailed recording of gardens and flowers during the early twentieth century, a period in which artists and gardeners shared an interest in planting combinations and the changing appearance of the garden through the seasons.