Cuitt was the only child of George Cuitt, a landscape and topographical painter, and his wife Jane; he was baptized in Richmond, Yorkshire on 13 October 1779. Nothing is known of his education or training, but he assisted in his father's work and turned to etching as a result of his enthusiasm for Piranesi. In about 1804 he went to Chester as a drawing master, and from 1810 onward he published several series of etchings of ancient castles and abbeys, town houses, and picturesque cottages. A sketchbook dated 1821 documents travels in North Wales, Warwickshire, Derbyshire, Durham, and Yorkshire. Cuitt returned to Richmond perhaps in 1821 and built himself a house in Masham. He resumed view painting and published several more sets of etchings, including one of Yorkshire abbeys. His etchings were collected into one volume by Nattali, to whom he had sold the copyright, and published in 1855. Cuitt died in Masham on 15 July 1854.
[Hayes, John. British Paintings of the Sixteenth through Nineteenth Centuries. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1992: 50.]
Artist Bibliography
1992
Hayes, John. British Paintings of the Sixteenth through Nineteenth Centuries. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1992: 50.