Researching George Vincent

George Vincent (baptised 27 June 1796 – 1832) was an English landscape artist who produced watercolours, etchings and oil paintings. He is considered by art historians to be one of the most talented of the Norwich School of painters, a group of artists connected by location and personal and professional relationships, who were mainly inspired by the Norfolk countryside. Vincent's work was founded on the Dutch school of landscape painting as well as the style of John Crome, also of the Norwich School. The school's reputation outside East Anglia in the 1820s was based largely upon the works of Vincent and his friend James Stark.

The son of a weaver, Vincent was educated at Norwich Grammar School and afterwards apprenticed to Crome. He exhibited at the Royal Academy, British Institution, and elsewhere. From 1811 until 1831 he showed at the Norwich Society of Artists, exhibiting more than 100 pictures of Norfolk landscapes and marine works. By 1818 he had relocated to London, where in 1821 he married the supposedly wealthy daughter of a surgeon. There he obtained the patronage of wealthy clients, yet struggled financially. The purchase of an expensive house, combined with a tendency towards drink, exacerbated his financial problems and led to his incarceration in the Fleet Prison for debt in 1824. Before his release in 1827 he had resumed his connection with the Norwich Society of Artists, albeit with a much lower output of work.

After 1831, Vincent disappeared. He was never found, despite attempts by his family to locate him, and his whereabouts after this date remain uncertain. His death may have occurred before April 1832, perhaps in Bath. His picture Greenwich Hospital from the River, which was shown in London three decades after his death, caused renewed interest in his paintings and helped to establish his reputation as a leading member of the Norwich School. The art historian Herbert Minton Cundall wrote in the 1920s that had Vincent "not given way to intemperate habits he would probably have ranked amongst the foremost of British landscape painters".-

It was once believed that in 1912, he brought a wax cylinder recording device, which he had borrowed from his friend Charles Edison, to the home of former President Teddy Roosevelt, and convinced Roosevelt to speak into it. However, this pivotal event occurred on March 4, 1913, according to Allen Koenigsberg's latest published research. Thus began Vincent's private collection of voice recordings of notable individuals and witnesses to history.

In 1922, after graduating from Yale, he joined Edison Laboratories. and worked in the restoration and preservation of antique recordings.

During the Second World War, Vincent helped establish the Armed Forces Radio Service; in 1943, his intervention in the musicians' strike led to the creation of the V-Disc, and he was subsequently awarded the Legion of Merit for his contributions to troop morale. After the war, he served as Sound Recording Officer at the Nuremberg Trials.

In 1962, he donated his collection of over 8,000 voice recordings to the Libraries of Michigan State University; it became the basis of the G. Robert Vincent Voice Library, which has over 100,000 items. Vincent was named assistant to the Director of the Libraries of MSU and curator of the Voice Library, a position he retained until retiring in 1973.