John Berney Crome
John Berney Crome (1 December 1794 – 15 September 1842) was an English landscape and marine painter in the Norwich School. He was known as Young Crome to distinguish him from his father, Old Crome. He was the eldest son of John Crome, a leading Norfolk painter and founder of the Norwich Society of Artists, and Phoebe Berney.
Crome grew up in Norwich and attended the Grammar School until he was eighteen, while pursuing art with his father. In 1816 he travelled to Paris with his school friend George Vincent and doctor Benjamin Steel. He helped teach his father’s studio and was appointed landscape painter to the Duke of Sussex. He joined the Norwich Society of Artists, serving as Vice-President in 1818 and later as President on several occasions. After his father’s death in 1821, Crome continued teaching and ran the family house in Gildengate Street, adding a studio. In 1828 he worked with John Sell Cotman to revive the Norwich Society of Artists.
Between 1811 and 1843, Crome exhibited in London at the Royal Academy, the British Institution, and the Society of British Artists, and he travelled to France, Holland, Belgium, and Italy. His work shows the influence of his father, and he painted many moonlit scenes, including River Scene by Moonlight (1834). His extravagant lifestyle led to bankruptcy in 1831, and the contents of his father’s house were sold. He moved to Great Yarmouth in 1835 to teach drawing. He died on 15 September 1842 after an incurable illness. He married twice but had no children, and he was remembered as a genial, jovial man. A portrait by H. B. Love hangs in Norwich’s Castle Museum.
Crome worked in oils, watercolors, and pencil, painting coastal and rural scenes both in Britain and abroad. His works are held in collections such as the Norfolk Museums Castle Museum, the Tate, and the Yale Center for British Art, among others, and some pieces have fetched significant sums at auction.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 23:45 (CET).