John Graham was an 18th-century Scottish painter and teacher of art.

Graham was born in Edinburgh

Edinburgh

Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...

 and apprenticed to a coach

Coach (carriage)

A coach was originally a large, usually closed, four-wheeled carriage with two or more horses harnessed as a team, controlled by a coachman and/or one or more postilions. It had doors in the sides, with generally a front and a back seat inside and, for the driver, a small, usually elevated seat in...

-painter in Edinburgh, George MacFarquhar. He next moved to London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 and became a coach-painter. He started studying at the Royal Academy

Royal Academy

The Royal Academy of Arts is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly, London. The Royal Academy of Arts has a unique position in being an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects whose purpose is to promote the creation, enjoyment and...

 Schools and exhibited there between 1780 and 1797. Graham also painted an Othello and Desdemona for John Boydell’s

John Boydell

John Boydell was an 18th-century British publisher noted for his reproductions of engravings. He helped alter the trade imbalance between Britain and France in engravings and initiated a British tradition in the art form...

 Shakespeare Gallery

Boydell Shakespeare Gallery

The Boydell Shakespeare Gallery in London, England, was the first stage of a three-part project initiated in November 1786 by engraver and publisher John Boydell in an effort to foster a school of British history painting...

.Thomson, “John Graham”.

Graham was nominated four times between 1793 and 1797 for associate membership to the Royal Academy, but failed to win election. Duncan Thomson, in his article in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, paraphrases Joseph Farington

Joseph Farington

Joseph Farington was an 18th-century English landscape painter and diarist.-Life and work:Born in Leigh, Lancashire, Farington was the second of seven sons of William Farington and Esther Gilbody. His father was the rector of Warrington and vicar of Leigh...

, who told Thomas Lawrence

Thomas Lawrence (painter)

Sir Thomas Lawrence RA FRS was a leading English portrait painter and president of the Royal Academy.Lawrence was a child prodigy. He was born in Bristol and began drawing in Devizes, where his father was an innkeeper. At the age of ten, having moved to Bath, he was supporting his family with his...

, that "Graham was a candidate he would certainly not vote for, in what he considered a very weak field". Thomson speculates that these failures prompted Graham to consider returning to Scotland.

Through the influence of the banker Sir William Forbes, Graham acquired the position of "public Teacher of Art" in Edinburgh in 1798. The painter Benjamin West

Benjamin West

Benjamin West, RA was an Anglo-American painter of historical scenes around and after the time of the American War of Independence...

, who had called Graham "an ingenious man", "felt he was ideally suited for the position". The board of trustees for fisheries, manufactures, and improvements, forerunners of the trustees of the National Galleries of Scotland

National Galleries of Scotland

The National Galleries of Scotland are the five national galleries of Scotland and two partner galleries. It is one of the country's National Collections.-List of national galleries:* The National Gallery of Scotland* The Royal Scottish Academy Building...

, had established a drawing academy in 1760 to improve industrial design

Industrial design

Industrial design is the use of a combination of applied art and applied science to improve the aesthetics, ergonomics, and usability of a product, but it may also be used to improve the product's marketability and production...

. Before officially starting his labors, Graham held a public exhibition of his work in Edinburgh. The academy followed the system of the Royal Academy Schools, but did not include drawing from life. Concerned that he was "perceived only as a teacher of artists sponsored by the board", Graham took on several private students, girls at one time of the day and boys at another. Twelves lessons cost two guineas.

According to Thomson, he was an "inspirational and effective" teacher and "a number of important nineteenth-century Scottish artists benefited from his teaching—David Wilkie

David Wilkie (artist)

Sir David Wilkie was a Scottish painter.- Early life :Wilkie was the son of the parish minister of Cults in Fife. He developed a love for art at an early age. In 1799, after he had attended school at Pitlessie, Kettle and Cupar, his father reluctantly agreed to his becoming a painter...

, William Allan, Alexander Fraser

Alexander Fraser (painter)

Alexander Fraser was a Scottish landscape painter and the biographer of Horatio McCulloch. He is also known as Alexander Fraser the Younger as his father, Alexander Fraser , was also a Scottish painter. According to Edward Pinnington's biography of him, he was brought up on the coast of Argyll. He...

, and John Watson Gordon

John Watson Gordon

Sir John Watson Gordon was a Scottish portrait painter and a president of the Royal Scottish Academy.-Life and work:He was born John Watson in Edinburgh, the eldest son of Captain Watson, R.N., a cadet of the family of Watson of Overmains, in the county of Berwick. He was educated specially with a...

". In 1859, the Royal Scottish Academy

Royal Scottish Academy

The Royal Scottish Academy is a Scottish organisation that promotes contemporary Scottish art. Founded in 1826, as the Royal Institution for the Encouragement of the Fine Arts, the RSA maintains a unique position in Scotland as an independently funded institution led by eminent artists and...

 bought his The Disobedient Prophet, writing of Graham that he was a "Master to whom Scottish Art had been considerably indebted". The painting hung in the National Gallery of Scotland until 1896, when it disappeared. Graham painted portraits, including one of Alderman John Boydell. He also painted animal pictures, such as the series of lion and tiger paintings he made of the menagerie in the Tower of London

Tower of London

Her Majesty's Royal Palace and Fortress, more commonly known as the Tower of London, is a historic castle on the north bank of the River Thames in central London, England. It lies within the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, separated from the eastern edge of the City of London by the open space...

.

Graham died at his home "'after a severe and lingering illness'" on 1 November 1817.