Graham Petrie (1859–1940), was a British artist, poster designer, and author.[1][2][3] He was well known for his landscape and travel posters for railway companies.[4]
He was born in St Pancras, London, his parents were Alexander Sturrock Petrie (1815-1872),[5] merchant, and Elizabeth Cochran. He originally trained as an architect under Richard Phené Spiers, educated at Mill Hill, then studied painting in London under Professor Fred Brown and in Paris. He was the brother of the watercolour landscape painter Elisabeth Cochran Petrie (1847-1921), who exhibited 1880–1902;[1] another sister, Mary Petrie (1851-1934), was also a watercolour artist.[6] Both sisters died at his house, 1 Mallord Street, Chelsea, where he had lived since about 1914.[7][8][9][10]
In 1889 Petrie was present at the dinner held to congratulate Whistler on being made an Honorary Member of the Royal Academy of Munich, at the Criterion in Piccadilly.[2] In 1928 he represented the Chelsea Arts Club on the Chelsea Society Council.[16]
He died on 31 May 1940 at his house in Mallord Street by accidentally setting his bedclothes on fire from a cigarette.[17][18] His body was cremated and the ashes were interred in the Petrie family vault (plot no.25214) on the eastern side of Highgate Cemetery.
Publications
Tunis, Kairouan & Carthage, described and illustrated with forty-eight paintings, by Graham Petrie, R. I. London, W. Heinemann, 1908.[19]