Fuseli, Henry

orig. Johann Heinrich Füssli

(born Feb. 7, 1741, Zürich, Switz.—died April 16, 1825, London, Eng.) Swiss-born British painter and writer on art. The son of a portrait painter, he trained in theology as well as in art and art history. He left his native Zürich for London in 1764. Encouraged by Sir Joshua Reynolds, he went to Italy in 1770 and stayed for eight years; on his return to England, his works exhibited at the Royal Academy, such as his most famous work, The Nightmare (1781), secured his reputation. His subject matter was chiefly literary, and his images portrayed macabre fantasies and the grotesque. He was elected a full academician in 1790 and taught painting at the academy (1799–1805).

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