Peter Anson - undated photograph, but probably before 1930
Peter Anson was born in Portsmouth , the son of Admiral Charles Anson. Both sides of his family had close ties with the sea and he began sketching scenes of fishing life by the age of six. Albums of his earliest paintings are mostly landscapes with a freedom of style, showing little obvious regard for the complete accuracy which he sought almost obsessively in his paintings in later life - or, as he put it "...to produce a realistic record which could be understood by ordinary folk."
His formal education concluded at the Architectural School of London. At the age of 21, he joined the Anglican Benedictine Community at Caldey Island, off the coast of Wales near Tenby, and was received into the Roman Catholic Church in 1913. His personal faith and love for the sea were the two main influences in his life and the source of much of his inspiration.