Augustus Edwin Mulready
Encyclopedia
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
street scenes with urchins
Street children
A street child is a child who lives on the streets of a city, deprived of family care and protection. Most children on the streets are between the ages of about 5 and 17 years old.Street children live in junk boxes, parks or on the street itself...
and flower-sellers
Flower seller
A flower seller, normally a woman, traditionally sells flowers on the street. Often the flowers are carried, in a basket for example. The subject matter has been a favorite of artists. The profession has mostly died out in countries like the United Kingdom, but still exists in others such as India....
.
Life and work
Mulready came from a family of artists. His grandfather, William MulreadyWilliam Mulready
William Mulready was an Irish genre painter living in London. He is best known for his romanticizing depictions of rural scenes, and for creating Mulready stationery letter sheets, issued at the same time as the Penny Black postage stamp.-Life and family:William Mulready was born in Ennis, County...
(1786–1863), came to London from Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
and established himself as a very successful and popular genre painter and book illustrator. His grandmother Elizabeth Mulready, née Varley (1784–1864) was a landscape painter, and the sister of artist John Varley
John Varley (painter)
John Varley was an English watercolour painter and astrologer, and a close friend of William Blake. They collaborated in 1819–1820 on the book Visionary Heads, written by Varley and illustrated by Blake...
(1778–1842).
Mulready was born in Kensal Green
Kensal Green
Kensal Green, also referred to as Kensal Rise is an area of London, England. It is located on the southern edge of the London Borough of Brent and borders the City of Westminster to the East and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea to the South....
, London, the third of five children of William Mulready Junior (1805–1878, portrait painter and picture restorer), and his wife Sara (1818–1874). He studied art at the South Kensington Schools and as early as 1861, at the age of 17, was already promoting himself as a figure artist. In the same year he entered the Royal Academy
Royal Academy
The Royal Academy of Arts is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly, London. The Royal Academy of Arts has a unique position in being an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects whose purpose is to promote the creation, enjoyment and...
, London on the recommendation of John Callcott Horsley
John Callcott Horsley
John Callcott Horsley RA , was an English Academic painter of genre and historical scenes, illustrator, and designer of the first Christmas card. He was a member of the artist's colony in Cranbrook.-Life:...
who took him under his patronage. In 1903, reflecting on Horsley's death, Mulready wrote that Horsley was "for so many years...regarded by myself as more than a father or valued friend I have known - who's many acts, by word of help and of kindness, throughout the days of his life to me have been so marked and fixed in love though now in tears of memory"..
Mulready's artistic career was much overshadowed by the fame of his grandfather, William Mulready, who was remembered, praised, exhibited and referred to long after his death in 1863. He exhibited, however, at the Royal Academy between 1863 and 1880, at the Hanover Gallery, and the art galleries of Liverpool and Southport, and his paintings were sold at Christie's
Christie's
Christie's is an art business and a fine arts auction house.- History :The official company literature states that founder James Christie conducted the first sale in London, England, on 5 December 1766, and the earliest auction catalogue the company retains is from December 1766...
. In 1879, 'A Naturalist's Window' shown at Walker Art Gallery
Walker Art Gallery
The Walker Art Gallery is an art gallery in Liverpool, which houses one of the largest art collections in England, outside of London. It is part of the National Museums Liverpool group, and is promoted as "the National Gallery of the North" because it is not a local or regional gallery but is part...
in Liverpool was praised by a local critic as representing "a group of persons in various stations of lfe, including an African nurse girl, looking at a stuffed gorilla in a naturalist shop. It is a remarkable production and does great credit to Mr A E Mulready.". His artistic manner - figurative painting with extensive use of colours and attention to detail - was similar to that of his father and grandfather.
From 1870, Mulready was associated with the Cranbrook Colony
Cranbrook Colony
The Cranbrook Colony was a group of artists who settled in Cranbrook, Kent from 1854 onwards and were inspired by seventeenth century Dutch and Flemish painters...
of artists, living, from 1871, at Waterloo Place, next door to F D Hardy
Frederick Daniel Hardy
Frederick Daniel Hardy was an English genre painter and member of the Cranbrook Colony.-Life:Hardy was born in Windsor in Berkshire, one of six children of George Hardy , a musician to George IV, Queen Adelaide and Queen Victoria in the Royal household at Windsor...
. He returned to London in 1874. Being much younger than other members of the colony, he had little in common with them, and his art reflected on social issues of the day, particularly on the poverty experienced by children their struggle with adult problems - no over-sentimental rural or domestic scenes by him are known. He often depicted London street scenes with urchins and poor flower-sellers, such as 'A Day's Reckoning' and 'Sounds of Revelry', shown in 1886 at the Hanover Gallery, and 'A Flower Girl in a Red Shawl' and 'A Newspaper Boy Selling Papers' displayed at Walker's Gallery in Liverpool in 1887..
A large-scale painting "Homeless by Night" was exhibited in 1892 at the Atkinson Art Gallery, Southport
Southport
Southport is a seaside town in the Metropolitan Borough of Sefton in Merseyside, England. During the 2001 census Southport was recorded as having a population of 90,336, making it the eleventh most populous settlement in North West England...
, and described as a large painful picture, shows a number of gutter children of both sexes, preparing to sleep under one of the Landseer's lions in Trafalgar Square
Trafalgar Square
Trafalgar Square is a public space and tourist attraction in central London, England, United Kingdom. At its centre is Nelson's Column, which is guarded by four lion statues at its base. There are a number of statues and sculptures in the square, with one plinth displaying changing pieces of...
." A special feature of his paintings is the inclusion of street posters in the background, the text of which creates additional social and political context for the depicted scene. In this sense, his artworks correspond with problems raised by social activists of the era. Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...
novels also influenced Mulready's paintings, such as “Hard Times” (1877, private collection). He was even described as 'a sentimental social realist'.
Mulready also occasionally experimented with landscape painting: In 1880, at Christie's, three of his small landscapes were sold - The Backward Course: a Sunny Day, a Rainy Afternoon and a Wintry Ave
Little is known about Mulready's private life. According to the England and Wales marriage index, Mulready married Maria in 1874 - the couple had two children: Claude Augustus, born in 1875 and Eleanor Julia, born in 1877.
Further reading
- The Cranbrook Colony. Exhibition at The Vestry Hall, Cranbrook. June 29-July 11, 1981 (catalogue).
- Cowling, Mary. Victorian figurative painting: domestic life and the contemporary social scene (Papadakis, 2000) p167.
External links
- Paintings by Mulready (Art Renewal Center Museum)
- A London Street scene (1900 - oil on canvas)
- A Quiet read (1875 oil on canvas)