(b Eastbourne, 17 Sept 1740; d London, 4 Feb 1779). English painter, draughtsman and etcher. He was closely involved with the Society of Artists of Great Britain, becoming its president in 1774, and his flamboyant personality, radical politics and romantic penchant for depictions of picturesque banditti led contemporaries to perceive him as a latter-day Salvator Rosa. Mortimer's works include portraiture, decorative interiors and book illustration, but he was first and foremost a history painter. Unlike most fellow artists in this genre, however, he derived much of his subject-matter from Anglo-Saxon history rather than from antiquity.
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