Edward Arthur Walton was a Scottish painter of landscapes and portraits. Edward was one of twelve children of Jackson Walton, a Manchester commission agent and a competent painter and photographer. Some of Edward's siblings were well-known in their time - his brother George Henry Walton

George Henry Walton

George Henry Walton , was a noted Scottish architect and designer of remarkable diversity. George was the youngest of twelve talented children of Jackson Walton, a Manchester commission agent and himself an accomplished painter and photographer, by his second wife, the Aberdeen-born Quaker Eliza...

 (1867–1933) was a noted architect, furniture designer and stained glass designer, Constance Walton was an acclaimed botanical painter, while Helen Walton, born 1850, was a decorative artist who studied at the Glasgow Government School of Design and was artistic mentor to the family.

Walton enjoyed his art training at the Staatliche Kunstakademie in Düsseldorf

Düsseldorf

Düsseldorf is the capital city of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and centre of the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region.Düsseldorf is an important international business and financial centre and renowned for its fashion and trade fairs. Located centrally within the European Megalopolis, the...

 and then at the Glasgow School of Art

Glasgow School of Art

Glasgow School of Art is one of only two independent art schools in Scotland, situated in the Garnethill area of Glasgow.-History:It was founded in 1845 as the Glasgow Government School of Design. In 1853, it changed its name to The Glasgow School of Art. Initially it was located at 12 Ingram...

. He was a close friend of Joseph Crawhall

Joseph Crawhall

Joseph Crawhall was an English artist born in Morpeth, Northumberland. He was the fourth child and second son of Joseph Crawhall II and Margaret Boyd. Crawhall specialised in painting animals and birds....

 - Walton’s brother Richard having married Judith Crawhall in 1878 - George Henry

George Henry (painter)

George Henry was a Scottish painter, one of the most prominent of the Glasgow School. He was born in Irvine, North Ayrshire, and studied at the Glasgow School of Art, later in Macgregor's studio, but learned most from his nature studies at Kirkcudbright.He was influenced also by his collaboration...

 and James Guthrie

James Guthrie (artist)

Sir James Guthrie was a Scottish painter, best known in his own lifetime for his portraiture, although today more generally regarded as a painter of Scottish Realism.-Life and work:...

 and lived in Glasgow until 1894 where he became part of the Glasgow School

Glasgow School

The Glasgow School was a circle of influential modern artists and designers who began to coalesce in Glasgow, Scotland in the 1870s, and flourished from the 1890s to sometime around 1910. Representative groups were: The Four , the Glasgow Girls and the Glasgow Boys...

 or Glasgow Boys, all of whom were great admirers of Whistler. Their favourite painting haunts were in the Trossachs

Trossachs

The Trossachs itself is a small woodland glen in the Stirling council area of Scotland. It lies between Ben A'an to the north and Ben Venue to the south, with Loch Katrine to the west and Loch Achray to the east. However, the name is used generally to refer to the wider area of wooded glens and...

 and at Crowland

Crowland

Crowland or Croyland is a small town in south Lincolnshire, England, positioned between Peterborough and Spalding, with two sites of historical interest.-Geography:...

 in Lincolnshire. In 1883 Walton joined Guthrie, who had taken a house in the Berwickshire village of Cockburnspath

Cockburnspath

Cockburnspath is a village in the Scottish Borders area of Scotland. It lies near the North Sea coast between Berwick-upon-Tweed and Edinburgh. It is at the eastern extremity of the Southern Upland Way, a long-distance footpath from the west to east coast of Scotland, and it is also the terminus...

. He also produced a remarkable set of watercolours in Helensburgh

Helensburgh

Helensburgh is a town in Argyll and Bute, Scotland. It lies on the north shore of the Firth of Clyde and the eastern shore of the entrance to the Gareloch....

 in 1883, showing the affluent suburb and its decorous people. These images are regarded as some of the finest of the Glasgow School and praised for their clarity, colour and strong decorative sense. Carrying out portrait commissions became Walton's main source of income. In the 1880s and 1890s he painted murals in the main building of the Glasgow International Exhibition of 1888 and other buildings in the city.

Walton also attended painting classes at the Glasgow studio of W. Y. Macgregor

William York Macgregor

William York Macgregor was a Scottish landscape painter.Macgregor studied in Glasgow under Robert Greenlees and Docharty and at the Slade School under Alphonse Legros. He joined James Paterson in 1878 and they were co-founders of the Glasgow School...

, one of the central figures of the Glasgow School. Walton exhibited from 1880 in both Glasgow, at the Royal Glasgow Institute of Fine Arts, and Edinburgh, at the Royal Scottish Academy

Royal Scottish Academy

The Royal Scottish Academy is a Scottish organisation that promotes contemporary Scottish art. Founded in 1826, as the Royal Institution for the Encouragement of the Fine Arts, the RSA maintains a unique position in Scotland as an independently funded institution led by eminent artists and...

, being elected an Associate of the Academy in 1889 and a full member in 1905. He was in London from 1894 until 1904, living in Cheyne Walk

Cheyne Walk

Cheyne Walk , is a historic street in Chelsea, the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. It takes its name from William Lord Cheyne who owned the manor of Chelsea until 1712. Most of the houses were built in the early 18th century. Before the construction in the 19th century of the busy...

 in Chelsea

Chelsea, London

Chelsea is an area of West London, England, bounded to the south by the River Thames, where its frontage runs from Chelsea Bridge along the Chelsea Embankment, Cheyne Walk, Lots Road and Chelsea Harbour. Its eastern boundary was once defined by the River Westbourne, which is now in a pipe above...

, and a neighbour of Whistler and John Lavery

John Lavery

Sir John Lavery was an Irish painter best known for his portraits.Belfast-born John Lavery attended the Haldane Academy, in Glasgow, in the 1870s and the Académie Julian in Paris in the early 1880s. He returned to Glasgow and was associated with the Glasgow School...

. While in London, Walton often painted in Suffolk

Suffolk

Suffolk is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in East Anglia, England. It has borders with Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south. The North Sea lies to the east...

, spending summers at the Old Vicarage in Wenhaston

Wenhaston

Wenhaston is a small village of 818 people situated to the south of the River Blyth in northeastern Suffolk, England. Roman coins, pottery and building materials unearthed in local fields indicate the existence of a settlement at Wenhaston from the 1st century AD, and indeed this was probably a...

. Here he painted pastoral scenes in oil and watercolour, the latter often on buff paper with creative interplay between paper and paint. He used extensive underpainting in his oils, thereby creating subtle effects.

In 1907 he accompanied Guthrie on a painting trip to Algiers and Spain and in 1913 worked in Belgium. The World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

 years led to his discovering Galloway

Galloway

Galloway is an area in southwestern Scotland. It usually refers to the former counties of Wigtownshire and Kirkcudbrightshire...

 and he became a frequent visitor to the area.

From 1915 he served as President of the Royal Scottish Water Colour Society. Walton's use of oil was reserved largely for important portraits in the Whistlerian manner.

Walton married the artist Helen Law (née Henderson) after becoming engaged on 29 November 1889. Helen gave up her painting career in order to tend to their family. Their son John (1895–1971), became Regius Professor of Botany at the University of Glasgow

Regius Professor of Botany, Glasgow

University of GlasgowThe Regius Chair of Botany at Glasgow University is a Regius Professorship established in 1818.A lectureship in botany had been founded in 1704. From 1718 to 1818, the subject was combined with Anatomy...

. Their daughter Cecile

Cecile Walton

Cecile Walton , was a Scottish painter, illustrator and sculptor. She and her husband Eric were two of the moving spirits of the Edinburgh chapter of the Symbolist movement in the early 20th century....

 (1891–1956), was a successful painter, sculptor and illustrator in Edinburgh.

A member of Glasgow Art Club

Glasgow Art Club

Glasgow Art Club is a club for practicing and retired artists and lay members with an interest in the arts, that has become over the generations “a meeting place for artists, business leaders and academics.” - History and premises :...

 work by Walton was included in the club's Memorial Exhibition of 1935, in memory of those of its members who had died since the First World War.