Local history

Romantic landscape painter Richard Parkes Bonington was born in Arnold on 25 October, 1802. His family home is now the Labour social club.

On the wall of the building is a stone relief celebrating his life, which people come from miles around to see.

Among experts Bonington is seen as one of the most influential British artists of his time.

His watercolours can be seen all over the world including at the Louvre in Paris and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Bonington's place of birth

His influence is everywhere in Arnold…

There’s the Richard Bonington School, Bonington theatre, Bonington Drive, a statue at Gedling Borough Council and even local businesses have adopted his name.

So surely the people of Arnold know all about their local legend?

"I know he was very important to Arnold. He was a poet I believe."

"He was a writer. There was a cinema named after him and there's the Labour club where he was born."

"Was he a portrait painter?"

Someone who does know plenty about Bonington is Sarah Skinner, Nottingham Castle's keeper of art.

She presides over one of the world’s largest collections of works by Bonington.

Relief of Bonington on the family home

"He was very famous when he died. We seem to have forgotten about him now. If he had lived on he would have been as famous as Turner or Constable."

Bonington didn't stay in Arnold, or England for that matter. He moved abroad when he was 15 after his father set up a lace making business in Calais.

Sarah tells us what happened once he emigrated...

"He went on to Paris to study and then he started to do these sketching trips as part of his career development. [He went on] another Normandy coastal tour and then [travelled to] Venice, and the rest of Italy...

"So, he wasn't a parochial man, he was out there experiencing the world."

Bonington produced paintings of astonishing quality. What’s more remarkable is that he produced a lifetime’s work in just 25 years.

In 1828 he died from tuberculosis, one month short of his 26th birthday.

In storage at the Castle is the last watercolour Bonington ever painted called 'The Undercliff'.

Heartbreakingly there's a message on the back from his Mother which reads: "The last painting our son ever painted. We will never part with it."

We can only imagine the work he would have produced had he lived longer.

Chateau of Duchess De Berry by Bonington

.