Edward Brian Seago

Edward Brian Seago was born at 13 Christchurch Road, Norwich on 31 March 1910, Edward was educated at South Lodge Boarding School at Lowestoft in Suffolk and was a self-taught artist, although at the age of 14, he won an award from the Royal Drawing Society and received encouragement from both Alfred Munnings and Bertram Priestman.
At the age of eighteen, Seago joined Bevin’s Travelling Show and subsequently toured with circuses in Britain and throughout Europe, he enlisted and was commissioned as a Major in the Royal Engineers and advised on camouflage techniques for Field Marshal Sir Claude Auchinleck with whom he had a lifelong friendship.
He painted in both oils and watercolours and his works have been classified as either Impressionist or Post-Impressionist and included landscapes, seascapes, skyscapes, street scenes, his garden, and portraits. The Queen Mother purchased so many that eventually the artist gave her two each year, on her birthday and at Christmas, and in 1956 Prince Philip invited him on a tour of the Antarctic, and his subsequent paintings, considered to be among his best, hang at Balmoral.
Seago died of a brain tumour in London on 19 January 1974. In his will he requested that one third of his paintings from his estate were to be destroyed but there remained about 19,000 watercolours and 300 oil paintings worldwide.