English painter, nephew of the painter and etcher John Sell Cotman (1782-1842). He entered the Royal Academy Schools in 1868. He was a regular exhibitor of both oils and watercolours, showing at the Royal Academy from 1871 onwards. His The Death of Eucles (Town Hall, Ipswich) won him a gold medal in 1873. Cotman's early watercolours were admired and bought by important artistic figures such as the painter Frederic Leighton (1830-1896) who engaged Cotman to help paint The Daphnephoria in 1876. Cotman was also employed in a similar capacity by Henry Tanworth Wells (1828-1903). Cotman exhibited three of his works at the Royal Society of British Artists, and also exhibited at several galleries in London. Outside London, he showed his work at the Royal Society of Artists in Birmingham, the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool, Manchester City Art Gallery, the Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts and the Royal Scottish Academy. //