Norman Garstin

Norman Garstin, born in County Limerick, originally trained as an engineer and architect before following a brief but successful career in journalism. He took up a career in art late, ironically after a riding accident which left him blind in one eye. He travelled to the continent to study, enrolling in the Antwerp Academy of Charles Verlat in 1880. From Antwerp he moved to Paris, to the atelier of Carolus Duran, where he remained a student for three years. During his time in Paris he met Degas whose work he greatly admired. From Paris in 1883 he sent his first submissions to the Royal Academy and the Royal Hibernian Academy. Leaving Paris he travelled to Brittany and on to the South of France, Italy, Tangier and Spain before settling in Newlyn, Cornwall in 1886. Here he became a member of the New English Art Club in 1887 and exhibited there until 1889.