Biography

English painter. He was a pupil of Warner Hassels (active 1680-1710), a portrait painter in Godfrey Kneller's circle, but Lambert's earliest dated painting, Classical Landscape with Two Figures (1723; private collection), already shows the influence of the landscape painter John Wootton. From 1726 he worked in London as a scene painter at Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre; he followed the impresario John Rich to Covent Garden Theatre in 1732 and continued to work there until his death.

In 1735 he was a founder-member of the prestigious Beef-Steak Club, an association of actors, men of letters and artists, among them William Hogarth and Rich. He was also involved in clubs and movements organized by artists to improve their professional standing and supported Hogarth's efforts in 1735 to establish artists' legal copyright over their engraved work.