British Painter, 1831-1923 was an English artist. Born in Worcester as Benjamin Leader Williams, he was the son of civil engineer Edward Leader Williams (who was also a keen amateur artist and friend of John Constable) and Quaker Sarah Whiting. His brother, also called Edward Leader Williams, followed in his father's footsteps and became a notable civil engineer. The family lived in Worcester at Diglis House. Williams Leader was educated at the Royal Grammar School Worcester and then the Royal Academy Schools. He immediately became successful as an artist and first exhibited his work at the Royal Academy in 1854. Since that year until his death in 1923 his paintings were hung in every summer exhibition at the Royal Academy. He was knighted as Chevalier of the Legion of Honour by the French in 1889 and was created a full member of the Royal Academy in 1898 (RA - Royal Academician). In 1914 he was given the Freedom of the City of Worcester in recognition of his services (as a director of Royal Worcester Porcerlain and a native of the city). Famous paintings include February Fill Dyke and Autumn's Last Gleam. His paintings were bought by King George V and William Gladstone amongst others, and he became one of the most popular and expensive artists of his day. His works received popular approval for their verisimilitude, and the fame of February Fill Dyke, facilitated by an etching, spread to London, Paris, and the United States.  Related Paintings of Benjamin Williams Leader :. | Villeneuve la Garenne on the Seine | Gebirgslandschaft bei Subiaco mit Hirten | Ruinen der Villa des Maecenas in Tivoli | Madonna Enthroned and Ten Saints | Heijastuksia |
Related Artists:
Morgenstern, Christian
German, 1805-1867 German painter. After training from 1824 with Siegfried Bendixen (1786-1864) in Hamburg, he studied at the Kunstakademi in Copenhagen in 1827 and made sketching trips to Sweden and Norway. He then settled permanently in Munich. He was influenced in particular by 17th-century Dutch painters, notably Jacob van Ruisdael, the Copenhagen plein-air painters, the emerging Norwegian landscape school and the early Realist painters working in Munich, such as Johann Georg von Dillis. Morgenstern explored objective, pure landscape painting with intimate motifs in such works as Beech-tree Trunks in Fredericksdal near Copenhagen (1828; Hamburg, Ksthalle). He also painted scenes combining closely rendered foreground details with extensive,
David Cox
David Cox [English Painter, 1783-1859] English painter. After taking drawing lessons from Joseph Barber (1757/8-1811) in Birmingham, Cox worked briefly as an apprentice to a painter of lockets and snuff-boxes named Fieldler. This was followed about 1800 by a longer period painting scenery for the New Theatre, Birmingham. On the promise of similar employment at Astley's Amphitheatre in Lambeth, Cox travelled to London in 1804, but when this came to nothing he decided to make his name as a watercolour painter. He began exhibiting at the Royal Academy in 1805 and from 1809 until its demise in 1812 with the Associated Artists in Water-Colours, of which he became both member and president in 1810. He was elected an Associate of the Society of Painters in Water-Colours in 1812 and within a month had advanced to full membership.
Hugh Douglas Hamilton
(c. 1740 - 10 February 1808) was an Irish portrait-painter. Biography Hamilton was born in Crow Street, in Dublin, Ireland, in 1740, the son of a peruke maker. Unfortunately there is very little concrete evidence for his earlylife, apart from his own drawings. He studied art under Robert West at the Dublin Society House - and won some early success with crayon and pastel portraits there. He was very adept at building relationships with patrons from the early days, taking up with the famous La Touche banking family of Dublin, who had close ties with the Bank of Ireland. Very little is known of Hamilton's career between 1756 and 1764, when he moved to London. Hamilton found great success in London through his pastel oval portraits, portraying royalty, politicians and celebrities of the day through this medium. Hamilton was often overwhelmed with orders, including commissions from the British royal family - such as Queen Charlotte (1764) and others now in the British Royal Collection. He showed with the Society of Artists and the Free Society of Artists from the mid-1760s to the mid-1770s. From the mid-1770s on, Hamilton became very interested in a softer, more textural form of pastel "fresco", in which he blended crayons and chalk to further the pastel's ability to imitate flesh. In 1779 he travelled to Italy, where he remained for the next twelve years, occasionally visiting Florence but mainly based in Rome, where he knew Antonio Canova. On the advice of artist John Flaxman Hamilton turned to oil painting, and achieved great success with small oval portraits of Irish and British visitors. His portraits of this period include those of Dean Kirwan (displayed at the Royal Dublin Society), George John, 2nd Earl Spencer, Countess Cowper (1787), and the exiled Charles Edward Stuart ( Lord Edward, 1785). In 1791 Hamilton returned to Dublin, where he died. In 1796 he painted Lord Edward Fitzgerald, the Irish revolutionary.