British 1836-1893 Atkinson Grimshaw Gallery Grimshaw's primary influence was the Pre-Raphaelites. True to the Pre-Raphaelite style, he put forth landscapes of accurate color and lighting, and vivid detail. He often painted landscapes that typified seasons or a type of weather; city and suburban street scenes and moonlit views of the docks in London, Leeds, Liverpool, and Glasgow also figured largely in his art. By applying his skill in lighting effects, and unusually careful attention to detail, he was often capable of intricately describing a scene, while strongly conveying its mood. His "paintings of dampened gas-lit streets and misty waterfronts conveyed an eerie warmth as well as alienation in the urban scene." Dulce Domum (1855), on whose reverse Grimshaw wrote, "mostly painted under great difficulties," captures the music portrayed in the piano player, entices the eye to meander through the richly decorated room, and to consider the still and silent young lady who is meanwhile listening. Grimshaw painted more interior scenes, especially in the 1870s, when he worked until the influence of James Tissot and the Aesthetic Movement. On Hampstead Hill is considered one of Grimshaw's finest, exemplifying his skill with a variety of light sources, in capturing the mood of the passing of twilight into the onset of night. In his later career this use of twilight, and urban scenes under yellow light were highly popular, especially with his middle-class patrons. His later work included imagined scenes from the Greek and Roman empires, and he also painted literary subjects from Longfellow and Tennyson ?? pictures including Elaine and The Lady of Shalott. (Grimshaw named all of his children after characters in Tennyson's poems.) In the 1880s, Grimshaw maintained a London studio in Chelsea, not far from the comparable facility of James Abbott McNeill Whistler. After visiting Grimshaw, Whistler remarked that "I considered myself the inventor of Nocturnes until I saw Grimmy's moonlit pictures."[9] Unlike Whistler's Impressionistic night scenes, however, Grimshaw worked in a realistic vein: "sharply focused, almost photographic," his pictures innovated in applying the tradition of rural moonlight images to the Victorian city, recording "the rain and mist, the puddles and smoky fog of late Victorian industrial England with great poetry." Some artists of Grimshaw's period, both famous and obscure, generated rich documentary records; Vincent Van Gogh and James Smetham are good examples. Others, like Edward Pritchett, left nothing. Grimshaw left behind him no letters, journals, or papers; scholars and critics have little material on which to base their understanding of his life and career. Grimshaw died 13 October 1893, and is buried in Woodhouse cemetery, Leeds. His reputation rested, and his legacy is probably based on, his townscapes. The second half of the twentieth century saw a major revival of interest in Grimshaw's work, with several important exhibits of his canon.  Related Paintings of Atkinson Grimshaw :. | Tree Shadows on the Park Wall,Roundhay Park Leeds | The Old Mill Cheshire | Knostrop Cut Leeds | Iris | Shipping on the Clyde |
Related Artists:
Emile Munier
was a French academic artist and student of William-Adolphe Bouguereau. Emile Munier was born in Paris and lived with his family at 66 rue des Fosses, St. Marcel. His father, Pierre François Munier, was an artist upholsterer at the Manufacture Nationale des Gobelins and his mother, Marie Louise Carpentier, was a polisher in a cashmere cloth mill. Emile and his two brothers, François and Florimond, were gifted artists and each spent some time at the Gobelins. During Emile's training he developed a close relationship with his professor Abel Lucas and his family. He eventually married Abel's daughter Henriette. During the 1860s, Munier received three medals at the Beaux-Arts and in 1869 he exhibited at the Paris Salon. He became a great supporter of the Academic ideals and a follower of Bouguereau, whose subject matter would be an important inspiration to the young Munier. In 1867, Henriette gave birth to a son, Emile Henri. Six weeks after the birth, having contracted severe rheumatism, Henriette died prematurely. In 1871, Munier abandoned his career as an upholsterer and devoted his time solely to painting; he also began teaching classes to adults three nights a week. Sargine Augrand, a student of Abel Lucas and a close friend of Emile and Henriette (before she died), caught Emile eye; they married in 1872 and lived in a small apartment and studio. Munier frequented the studio of Bouguereau, and they became friends. In 1885 he painted, and exhibited at the Paris Salon, Trois Amis (Favourite Pets). This painting, representing a chubby girl playing on her bed with a kitten and a dog, was an extremely successful work, being reproduced in many forms and used for publicity posters by Pears Soap. With this work, Emile asserted himself as one of inters of young children and their pets; it was eventually acquired by an American collector. Among his many American patrons were Chapman H. Hyams and his wife, who were important collectors of contemporary French paintings during the 19th century and favored artists like Henner, Bouguereau, Gerôme, Vinel and Schreyer. Munier painted their portrait in 1889, and it, along with much of their collection, is now in the New Orleans Museum of Art. During the 1890s Munier continued to paint peasant, mythological and religious subjects. In 1893 he exhibited L'esprit de la chute d'eau, at the Paris Salon, a nude nymph whom is not unlike Naissance de Venus by Bouguereau.
Peck Sheldon
American portrait painter and artist b.1797 d.1868 American painter. A self-taught painter, he used his family as subjects in his early works, employing dark colours against flat backgrounds. After moving to Jordan, NY, in 1828 he used brighter colours and included more detail. He continued to paint on panel, almost always making half-length portraits characterized by such features as a broad brow, a wide, intense stare from detailed eyes and the use of a decorative brushstroke
Rudolf Ernst
1854-1932