Eric Thornton Prehn was born in Moscow to British parents in 1894, leaving Soviet Russia in 1922 and settling in Riga, Latvia, where he studied art and took active part in the life of the local art community. He worked predominantly as a landscape artist, particularly after his trip to Italy in 1935, where he encountered the work of Italian Renaissance painters. Thornton Prehn moved to Britain just before the outbreak of the Second World War, shortly afterwards settling in Scotland, where he continued working as a painter and educator; he also authored several academic publications dedicated to the history of Italian art.
Painter Eric Thornton Prehn was born in Moscow, Russian Empire (now Russia) in 1894 to British parents. His family on the mother's side, originally from Yorkshire, owned the Thornton Woollen Mill in St Petersburg, one of the largest enterprises of its kind in the Russian Empire, famously referred to by Vladimir Lenin in his speech addressed to 'the working men and women of the Thornton factory' in 1895; on his father's side, the Prehns originated from Liverpool. Thornton Prehn spent his childhood years in Russia but travelled to Britain regularly during the summer months.
Following the events of the October Revolution, Prehn's family left Soviet Russia in 1922, moving first to England and then settling in Riga, Latvia, where a well established Russian community was already in place. After a brief stint in Paris, Prehn continued his artistic education in Riga, studying under painters Konstantin Vysotsky and Jānis Tilbergs. While in Riga Prehn met architect and painter Sergei Antonov and his sister Nadezhda (painter and student of Ivan Bilibin) and theatre set and costume designer Yuri Rykovsky; all three worked for the Riga Russian Drama Theatre. In 1930, Prehn took part in the Exhibition of Paintings by Russian Artists held at the Jānis Altbergs' artistic salon. Later the same year he was one of the organisers and participants of the Exhibition of Russian Artists [Ausstellung Russischer malerei und graphik] in Berlin. In 1931 Prehn married St Petersburg-born, Riga-based Irina Gartier. From 1932–38 Prehn was closely involved in the activities of the Riga-based Acropolis society for the encouragement of the arts and the preservation of antiquities. In 1935 Prehn travelled to Italy, meeting Russian copyist painter and picture restorer Nicholas Lokhoff, under whose influence he started studying the work of Italian Renaissance painters and employed tempera in his paintings for the first time. Having spent most of his time in Italy during the mid- to late 1930s, in 1938 Prehn published A Short Lexicon of Italian Painters. During the late 1930s he regularly exhibited his Italian landscapes, including at venues in Riga, Tallinn and The Hague (Toonzaal Kunst van Onzen Tijd series of exhibitions at Galerie Loujetzky, 1937 and 1938).
Prehn moved to London with his family in 1939, just before the outbreak of the Second World War. During this time he became friends with the London-based Russian composer Nikolai Medtner, whose house in Golders Green the Prehn family frequented during the early wartime years. Their own London house was damaged four times during the Blitz, and in 1941 the family made a decision to move to Scotland, first to Oban and later to Edinburgh. In 1941–48 Prehn took part regularly in the Royal Scottish Academy annual exhibitions, on the first occasion encouraged by a Scottish acquaintance of his, landscape painter Charles Goddard Napier and in 1948 he exhibited at the Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, London. In 1949 Prehn held a solo exhibition at the Scottish Gallery in Edinburgh, where 54 of his works, mainly landscapes depicting northern Scotland, were on display. His tempera views of Scotland and Italy were also shown twice in Oxford (1952 and 1955).
During the later part of his life Prehn focused on his career in art education, teaching the history of Italian painting at Edinburgh College of Art for 18 years. He also produced a number of academic publications, including A XIII century Crucifix in the Uffizi and the 'Maestro del S. Francesco Bardi' (1958), Visual Perception in XIII Century Italian Painting (1968) and Aspetti della Pittura Medievale Toscana [Aspects of Tuscan Medieval Painting] (1976), as well as scholarly articles in Italian academic journals. Eric Prehn died on 27 September 1985 in Edinburgh, Scotland, at his home at 6 Spence Street, and is buried in the city's Grange Cemetery. A posthumous exhibition of his work was organised at the Fine Art Society, Edinburgh in 1986. The artist's archive containing his private correspondence and exhibition reviews is held in the University of Leeds' Special Collections. His wife Irina Prehn donated over 40 of his works to the State Perm Art Gallery in Russia; a number of Prehn's works are also held in UK public collections, including the City Arts Centre in Edinburgh and the Parliamentary Art Collection.