Biography

In 1802 Lizars was apprenticed to his father who ran an Edinburgh engraving business, before entering the Trustees’ Academy in 1804 as a student of John Graham. In 1808, as he graduated from the Trustees’ Academy, Lizars began exhibiting as a portraitist and genre painter with the Associated Artists of Edinburgh. Obliged to assume responsibility for the family business after the death of his father, he practically relinquished his career as an easel painter. He expanded the business into a highly successful and diverse operation. Most prestigious of all was his involvement both as engraver and shareholder in Scott’s Provincial Antiquities (1826). He was an exceptionally skilled technician, and developed a high relief etching process which was communicated to William Blake. His stature as an engraver was recognised by his election as an Associate Engraver of the Royal Scottish Academy in 1827, and a burgess of the City of Edinburgh in 1828