Welsh Woman
| Reference: | S42277 |
| Author | Hubert von HERKOMER |
| Year: | 1878 |
| Measures: | 250 x 315 mm |
€400.00
| Reference: | S42277 |
| Author | Hubert von HERKOMER |
| Year: | 1878 |
| Measures: | 250 x 315 mm |
€400.00
Description
Etching and drypoint on laid paper, 1878, signed on pencil at the bottom right Hubert Herkomer.
A fine impression, with margins, good condition.
The ruffled cap and large black hat worn by this woman are traditionally Welsh. Herkomer was attracted to humble subjects, focussing early in his career on residents of his native Bavaria–his family were craftspeople who emigrated first to America, then to England in 1863. In the late 1870s Herkomer began to explore British themes and likely became interested in Wales through his friendship with the painter and Welsh landowner Charles William Mansel Lewis. The artist's household included, from 1874, Lulu Griffiths, a Welsh nurse who became his wife in 1884. An impression of this print was exhibited at M. Knoedler & Co., New York in 1882 (no. 2) with the following caption by the artist: "Another young and bold attempt to do something unusual. The lines are too heavily bitten and do not blend with the drypoint work."
Sir Hubert von Herkomer was a German-born British artist, and also a pioneering film-director and composer. Though a very successful portraitist, especially of men, he is mainly remembered for his earlier works that took a realistic approach to the conditions of life of the poor.
Bibliografia
Algernon Graves The Royal academy of arts; a complete dictionary of contributors and their works from its foundation in 1769 to 1904. London, 1905, vol. IV, p. 83, 1878, no. 1176: A Welsh woman, etching.
Hubert von HERKOMER (Waal, 26 maggio 1849 – Budleigh Salterton, 31 marzo 1914)
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Sir Hubert von Herkomer was a German-born British artist, and also a pioneering film-director and composer. Though a very successful portraitist, especially of men, he is mainly remembered for his earlier works that took a realistic approach to the conditions of life of the poor. Herkomer was born at Waal, Bavaria on 26 May 1849. Lorenz Herkomer, his father and a wood-carver of great ability, left Bavaria in 1851 with his wife and child for the United States, settling in Cleveland, Ohio. They soon returned to Europe and settled in Southampton in 1857 where the family spent over 15 years before moving to a house called Dyreham in Bushey in 1874. Whilst in Southampton, Herkomer went to the school of art there and began his formal art training. He also studied in Munich, and in 1866 he entered upon a more serious course of study at the South Kensington Schools and, in 1869, exhibited for the first time at the Royal Academy. In same year, he also began working as an illustrator for the newly founded newspaper The Graphic, a deliberate rival of the Illustrated London News. It was by his 1875 oil painting ‘The Last Muster’, after a wood-engraving from 1871, that he definitely established his position as an artist of high distinction at the Academy, and was elected an associate of the Academy in 1879 and an academician in 1890. He founded the Herkomer Art School at Bushey in 1883 and directed it until 1904 when he retired. During those years, it had taught more than 500 students, many of whom, such as Algernon Talmage and William Nicholson, went on to achieve distinction. Much of the success of the school can be measured by its alumni who included Lucy Kemp-Welch, George Harcourt, Tom Mostyn, E. Borough Johnson and Roland Wheelwright. Lucy Kemp-Welch took over the running of the Art School from Herkomer and ran it until 1926, first as the Bushey School of Painting and then, after relocating it to her own home, as the Kemp-Welch School of Animal Painting. After 1928 the school was run by Kemp-Welch's former assistant Marguerite Frobisher as the Frobisher School of Art. Whilst running the Art School he also exhibited a very large number of memorable portraits, figure subjects and landscapes, in oil and watercolour; he achieved marked success as a worker in enamel, as an etcher, mezzotint engraver and illustrative draughtsman, as well as exercising a wide influence upon art education. He was also a pioneering filmmaker, directing some seven historical costume dramas designed to be shown accompanied by his own music, but none of them seem to have survived. He became an associate of the Royal Watercolour Society in 1893 and a full member in 1894, and in 1885 he was appointed Slade Professor of Fine Art at the University of Oxford, a position he held until 1894. In 1899, he was ennobled as "Ritter von Herkomer" by King Otto of Bavaria, who appointed him Knight of the Merit Order of the Bavarian Crown. The same year, he was awarded the Pour le Mérite for Arts by Kaiser Wilhelm II. On her deathbed Queen Victoria was initially photographed in study and eventually painted by Herkomer as an alternative to the more traditional mask produced in wax which her son, the incumbent Edward VII, decried. The painting, depicting the Queen as lying half-length among lilies and other flowers, swathed in white tulle, her right hand holding a cross, is part of the Royal Collection held at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight, England, where it hangs in the Pavilion Principal Stairs Vestibule. Four of his pictures, Found (1885), Sir Henry Tate (1897), Portrait of Lady Tate (1899) and The Council of the Royal Academy (1908), are in the national collection at Tate. In 1907, he received the honorary degree of DCL at Oxford, and a knighthood was conferred upon him by the king in addition to the commandership of the Royal Victorian Order with which he was already decorated. Herkomer's massive house in Bushey, Lululaund, named after Lulu Griffith, the second of his three wives, served as his studio, school, theatre and movie studio, where he put on productions of his own plays and musical compositions. It was designed by the prominent American architect Henry Hobson Richardson, for whom Herkomer painted a portrait. It was designed in c.1886 and inhabited in 1894. It was demolished in 1939. Herkomer died at Budleigh Salterton, Devon on 31 March 1914 and was buried in St James's church, Bushey.
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Hubert von HERKOMER (Waal, 26 maggio 1849 – Budleigh Salterton, 31 marzo 1914)
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Sir Hubert von Herkomer was a German-born British artist, and also a pioneering film-director and composer. Though a very successful portraitist, especially of men, he is mainly remembered for his earlier works that took a realistic approach to the conditions of life of the poor. Herkomer was born at Waal, Bavaria on 26 May 1849. Lorenz Herkomer, his father and a wood-carver of great ability, left Bavaria in 1851 with his wife and child for the United States, settling in Cleveland, Ohio. They soon returned to Europe and settled in Southampton in 1857 where the family spent over 15 years before moving to a house called Dyreham in Bushey in 1874. Whilst in Southampton, Herkomer went to the school of art there and began his formal art training. He also studied in Munich, and in 1866 he entered upon a more serious course of study at the South Kensington Schools and, in 1869, exhibited for the first time at the Royal Academy. In same year, he also began working as an illustrator for the newly founded newspaper The Graphic, a deliberate rival of the Illustrated London News. It was by his 1875 oil painting ‘The Last Muster’, after a wood-engraving from 1871, that he definitely established his position as an artist of high distinction at the Academy, and was elected an associate of the Academy in 1879 and an academician in 1890. He founded the Herkomer Art School at Bushey in 1883 and directed it until 1904 when he retired. During those years, it had taught more than 500 students, many of whom, such as Algernon Talmage and William Nicholson, went on to achieve distinction. Much of the success of the school can be measured by its alumni who included Lucy Kemp-Welch, George Harcourt, Tom Mostyn, E. Borough Johnson and Roland Wheelwright. Lucy Kemp-Welch took over the running of the Art School from Herkomer and ran it until 1926, first as the Bushey School of Painting and then, after relocating it to her own home, as the Kemp-Welch School of Animal Painting. After 1928 the school was run by Kemp-Welch's former assistant Marguerite Frobisher as the Frobisher School of Art. Whilst running the Art School he also exhibited a very large number of memorable portraits, figure subjects and landscapes, in oil and watercolour; he achieved marked success as a worker in enamel, as an etcher, mezzotint engraver and illustrative draughtsman, as well as exercising a wide influence upon art education. He was also a pioneering filmmaker, directing some seven historical costume dramas designed to be shown accompanied by his own music, but none of them seem to have survived. He became an associate of the Royal Watercolour Society in 1893 and a full member in 1894, and in 1885 he was appointed Slade Professor of Fine Art at the University of Oxford, a position he held until 1894. In 1899, he was ennobled as "Ritter von Herkomer" by King Otto of Bavaria, who appointed him Knight of the Merit Order of the Bavarian Crown. The same year, he was awarded the Pour le Mérite for Arts by Kaiser Wilhelm II. On her deathbed Queen Victoria was initially photographed in study and eventually painted by Herkomer as an alternative to the more traditional mask produced in wax which her son, the incumbent Edward VII, decried. The painting, depicting the Queen as lying half-length among lilies and other flowers, swathed in white tulle, her right hand holding a cross, is part of the Royal Collection held at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight, England, where it hangs in the Pavilion Principal Stairs Vestibule. Four of his pictures, Found (1885), Sir Henry Tate (1897), Portrait of Lady Tate (1899) and The Council of the Royal Academy (1908), are in the national collection at Tate. In 1907, he received the honorary degree of DCL at Oxford, and a knighthood was conferred upon him by the king in addition to the commandership of the Royal Victorian Order with which he was already decorated. Herkomer's massive house in Bushey, Lululaund, named after Lulu Griffith, the second of his three wives, served as his studio, school, theatre and movie studio, where he put on productions of his own plays and musical compositions. It was designed by the prominent American architect Henry Hobson Richardson, for whom Herkomer painted a portrait. It was designed in c.1886 and inhabited in 1894. It was demolished in 1939. Herkomer died at Budleigh Salterton, Devon on 31 March 1914 and was buried in St James's church, Bushey.
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