"C" is for Coram, Thomas (ca. 1757-1811)

"C" is for Coram, Thomas (ca. 1757-1811). Engraver, painter. Coram immigrated to South Carolina in 1769. By 1781 Coram, a largely self-taught artist was advertising himself as an engraver. Among the few surviving examples of his engravings is a seal for the Charleston Library Society. In 1784 he opened a drawing school and among his students was the artist Chartist Fraser. The first known professional landscape artist in South Carolina, Coram derived his initial style and approach from studying and copying picturesque English books and engravers. In 1792 he published Sketchbook from Nature, which included views of Charleston and Charles Glover’s Goose Creek plantation. Two circa 1800 views portray the house of Thomas Radcliffe and Mulberry Plantation. Thomas Coram’s sketchbooks and landscapes serve as an essential link between British and American concepts of the picturesque.