George Richmond
Encyclopedia
For the 21st century educator see George H. Richmond
George Richmond (28 March 1809 – 19 March 1896) was an English
painter
.
George Richmond was the father of the painter William Blake Richmond
as well as the grandfather of the naval historian, Admiral Sir Herbert Richmond
.
A keen follower of cricket
, Richmond was noted in one obituary as having been "an habitué of Lord's since 1816"
, miniature-painter, of 42 Half Moon Street, Mayfair, was born at Brompton
, then a country village, on 28 March 1809. His mother, Ann Richmond, came of an Essex family named Oram, and was a woman of great beauty and force of character. His brother Thomas Richmond
was also a portrait artist.
One of his earliest recollections was the sight of the lifeguards marching to the cavalry barracks at Brompton on their return from the campaign of Waterloo, and he remembered when a lad walking for a mile beside the Duke of York, in order to sketch him for his father, from whom he received his first instruction in art. He went for a short time only to a day school kept by an old dame in Soho
, and at fifteen became a student at the Royal Academy
. Here he was much impressed by the personality of Henry Fuseli
, then professor of painting, formed a friendship, which lasted a lifetime, with Samuel Palmer
, and had as fellow-students and companions Edward Calvert, Thomas Sidney Cooper
, esq., R.A., and Frederick Tatham
, whose sister he married. Among other early friends was John Giles, Palmer's cousin, and a man of devout life and deep religion, who deeply influenced the literary taste, general culture, and religious views of his friends.
at Highgate. The same night Richmond walked home across the fields to Fountain Court with the poet and painter, who left on Richmond's mind a profound impression, ‘as though he had been walking with the prophet Isaiah.’ From this time till Blake's death, Richmond followed his guidance and inspiration in art. Traces of Blake's influence are seen in all Richmond's early works, and especially in ‘Abel the Shepherd,’ and in ‘Christ and the Woman of Samaria,’ exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1825. In 1827 he was present at Blake's death, and had the sad privilege of closing the poet's eyes and taking his death mask; he, his wife Julia, and a little band of young enthusiasts, of whom he was the last survivor, followed Blake to his grave in Bunhill Fields
.
His early work was much inspired by William Blake
, and, with Samuel Palmer
and Edward Calvert, and joined other youthful devotees at Blake's residence. He was a member of the Blake-influenced group known as "The Ancients
". This influence faded in later life, when he produced relatively conventional portrait
s.
.
On his return to England he spent some time at the White Lodge, Richmond Park, with Lord Sidmouth, who gave him much valuable counsel, and whose portrait by him in watercolour is now in the National Portrait Gallery. In 1830 his contributions to the academy comprised two poetical subjects, ‘The Eve of Separation’ and ‘The Witch,’ from Ben Jonson
's ‘Sad Shepherdess,’ and three portraits. In 1831 he exhibited but one picture, ‘The Pilgrim.’
He had now formed a deep attachment to Julia, a beautiful daughter of Charles Heathcote Tatham
, the architect, and when her father revoked the consent he had at first given to their union, the young couple ran away, journeyed to Scotland by coach in the deep snow of a severe winter, and were married according to Scottish law at Gretna Green
in January 1831. This act proved the turning-point of Richmond's career, and determined him to adopt portraiture as the readiest means of earning a living. Soon after the young couple had set up house in Northumberland Street, they were found and befriended by Sir Robert Harry Inglis, and it was at his instance that the portrait in watercolour of William Wilberforce
, afterwards engraved by Samuel Cousins
, was painted by Richmond; this picture, by its happy treatment of a difficult subject, and by the excellence of the engraving after it, achieved a world-wide success. There followed immediately many successful watercolour portraits, among which may be mentioned those of Lord Teignmouth
, the Frys, the Gurneys, the Buxtons, the Upchers, and the Thorntons, all traceable to Inglis's friendly introduction.
In 1837 Richmond was forced to take a rest for the sake of his health, which had broken down through overwork and the loss of three children within a very short time. He went to Rome with his wife and their surviving child Thomas, accompanied by Samuel Palmer and his bride, a daughter of John Linnell. During his stay in Italy, which lasted about two years, he made studies and copies of many of the subjects on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, having a scaffolding erected so as to reach the vault; here he made the acquaintance of Cardinal Mezzofanti, of whose colloquial English he always spoke with wonder. Subsequently he visited Naples, Pompeii, and the cities of Tuscany with Mr. Baring, for whom he painted a picture of 'The Journey to Emmaus.' While still in Rome he painted a picture of ‘Comus,’ afterwards exhibited. In Rome Richmond made many valuable friends, including Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone (then Miss Glynn), Dr. (now Sir) Henry Acland, the Severns, Thomas Baring
, Lord Farrer
, and John Sterling
, and his house on the Tarpeian rock
was a meeting-place for these young English travellers.
John Sterling, in letters to Richard Chenevix Trench
, writes of Richmond as the most interesting young artist he had met. In after years he was one of the original members of the Sterling Club. He returned to England in 1839, and resumed his practice as a portrait-painter, revisiting Rome, however, with his brother Thomas in 1840. Then, as related in ‘Præterita,’ Richmond made the friendship of Mr. Ruskin, whom he was afterwards the means of introducing to Thomas Carlyle. About the same period Richmond travelled in Germany with John Hullah, and at Munich he studied for a while under Peter von Cornelius
.
Richmond was a man of remarkable social gifts and of distinguished courtesy; his relations both professionally and socially with the leading men of his time, his good memory, and his brilliant powers of description, made his conversation extremely interesting. He was a member of ‘The Club’ (Johnson's), Nobody's Friends, Grillion's Club, to which he was limner, and the Athenaeum Club, London
. A staunch churchman, he was intimate for years with all the leaders of the tractarian movement. He received honorary degrees from the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, was a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries
, an honorary fellow of University College, London, and of the Royal Institute of British Architects
, and a member of the Company of Painter-Stainers of the City of London.
In 1846 he was nominated by Mr. Gladstone to succeed Sir Augustus Wall Callcott
on the council of the government schools of design, a post which he held for three years; and ten years later he was appointed a member of the royal commission to determine the site of the National Gallery
, when he was alone in voting for its removal from Trafalgar Square to South Kensington. In 1871, and again in 1874, Mr. Gladstone pressed upon him the directorship of the National Gallery, but without success.
He died at his house, 20 York Street, Portman Square, where he had lived and worked for fifty-four years, on 19 March 1896, retaining almost to the end a vigorous and clear memory. He was buried at Highgate cemetery
, and is commemorated by a tablet designed by his sons to be placed in the crypt of St. Paul's Cathedral, close to the graves of Wren and of Leighton. He left ten children and forty grandchildren.
His surviving sons included Canon Richmond of Carlisle and Sir William Blake Richmond
, K.C.B., R.A. Of his daughters, three married respectively Mr. F. W. Farrer, Archdeacon Buchanan, canon of Salisbury, and Mr. Justice Kennedy.
Richmond's portraits of eminent persons in England were steadily produced for forty years, initially in crayon
and watercolour. After 1846 he began to paint in oil
, and left a large number of excellent portraits in this medium. Many of his portraits were reproduced as engraving
s. The Victorian Exhibition held at the New Gallery in the winter of 1891–2 contained eight of his portraits in oil, forty in crayon, and two (Mrs. Fry and Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, both dated 1845) in watercolour.
The oil pictures included Earl Granville, Archbishop Longley (1863), Bishops Selwyn and Wilberforce, Canon Liddon, and Sir George Gilbert Scott
, R.A. (1877). Among the crayon portraits were Cardinal Newman (1844), John Keble
, Henry Hallam
(1843), Charlotte Brontë
(1850), Elizabeth Gaskell
(1851), Lord Macaulay (1844 and 1850), Sir Charles Lyell
(1853), Michael Faraday
(1852), and Lord Lyndhurst (1847).
He also drew or painted Queen Adelaide
, Prince George (now Duke) of Cambridge, and the Prince of Wales, when a boy; Lord Palmerston, Lord Aberdeen, the Duke of Newcastle, and Mr. Gladstone; Cardinal Manning, Archbishop Tait, and Dean Stanley; Sir Thomas Watson, Syme, Alison, and Sir James Paget; Prescott, Mrs. Beecher-Stowe, Darwin, Owen, and Tyndall, and a host of others. Richmond was elected an associate of the Royal Academy
in 1857, a royal academician in 1866, and some years before his death he joined the ranks of the retired academicians. He took a warm interest in the winter exhibitions of the old masters at the Royal Academy.
On the death of his wife in 1881 he gave up regular work, but still painted occasionally and occupied himself with sculpture
. He had previously, in 1862, designed and executed a recumbent statue in marble of Charles James Blomfield
, bishop of London, for St. Paul's Cathedral, and in 1882 he executed the marble bust of Dr. Pusey, now in Pusey House, Oxford
, and presented a bust of John Keble
to Keble College. Among his later works in oil were portraits of Harvey Goodwin
, bishop of Carlisle, Edward King
, bishop of Lincoln, and Archibald Campbell Tait
, archbishop of Canterbury. In 1887, on the occasion of Queen Victoria's jubilee, he painted a portrait of the third Marquis of Salisbury (the last work he executed), which was presented to the queen by the marquis's wife.
His success as a portrait-painter was due as much to his power of drawing out the best from his sitter in conversation as to skill in delineation. Being a very skilful and rapid draughtsman, he was able, while putting himself into sympathy with his sitter, to report the happiest moment and fleeting changes of expression, and to get out of his subject more than at first sight appeared to be there. His ideal of portraiture was ‘the truth lovingly told;’ and he never consciously flattered. He was also a most industrious and clever sketcher from nature, and he produced (for his own pleasure and instruction) hundreds of drawings in pencil and watercolour, many of great beauty, of figure and landscape. To his skill as a portrait-painter were added great knowledge of Italian painting and sound judgment in matters of art, and the government were often glad to avail themselves of his services and advice.
In the National Portrait Gallery are portraits by him of Lord Sidmouth (watercolour); Lord-chancellors Cranworth and Hatherley, Baron Cleasby and Lord Cardwell (oil paintings); Samuel Rogers
, the poet, and John Keble (crayon drawings), both bequeathed by the painter; besides drawings, purchased in July 1896, of Earl Canning, Viscount Hill, Sir George Cornewall Lewis
, Canon Liddon, Archbishop Longley, Sir Charles Lyell, Cardinal Newman, Dr. Pusey, Sir Gilbert Scott
, Sir Robert Harry Inglis, and Bishop Wilberforce
.
George H. Richmond
George H. Richmond was an educator who introduced the concept of the "microsociety" to American primary education.George was a painter, teacher, and an educator. He was raised by a single mother in Manhattan's Lower East Side. He started teaching at a Brooklyn elementary school in 1967, and is a...
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
painter
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
.
George Richmond was the father of the painter William Blake Richmond
William Blake Richmond
Sir William Blake Richmond KCB , English painter and decorator, was born in London. His father, George Richmond, R.A...
as well as the grandfather of the naval historian, Admiral Sir Herbert Richmond
Herbert Richmond
Admiral Sir Herbert William Richmond KCB was a prominent naval officer, who also served as Vere Harmsworth Professor of Imperial and Naval History at Cambridge University and Master of Downing College, Cambridge...
.
A keen follower of cricket
Cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...
, Richmond was noted in one obituary as having been "an habitué of Lord's since 1816"
Early life
George, son of Thomas RichmondThomas Richmond (miniature-painter)
-Life:He was son of Thomas Richmond, originally of Bawtry, and of an old Yorkshire family. His father was 'groom of the stables' to the Duke of Gloucester, and afterwards the proprietor of the Coach and Horses at Kew, where the artist was born in 1771...
, miniature-painter, of 42 Half Moon Street, Mayfair, was born at Brompton
Brompton
A Brompton, Brompton, or The Brompton can be:* Brompton, London, England* Brompton Oratory, a Catholic church* Brompton Bicycle, the largest bicycle manufacturer in the United Kingdom* Holy Trinity Brompton Church, an Anglican church...
, then a country village, on 28 March 1809. His mother, Ann Richmond, came of an Essex family named Oram, and was a woman of great beauty and force of character. His brother Thomas Richmond
Thomas Richmond
Thomas Richmond was a British portrait painter, known for his idealised pictures in the so-called Keepsake style. He was the son of Thomas Richmond , the miniature painter, and the brother of George Richmond....
was also a portrait artist.
One of his earliest recollections was the sight of the lifeguards marching to the cavalry barracks at Brompton on their return from the campaign of Waterloo, and he remembered when a lad walking for a mile beside the Duke of York, in order to sketch him for his father, from whom he received his first instruction in art. He went for a short time only to a day school kept by an old dame in Soho
Soho
Soho is an area of the City of Westminster and part of the West End of London. Long established as an entertainment district, for much of the 20th century Soho had a reputation for sex shops as well as night life and film industry. Since the early 1980s, the area has undergone considerable...
, and at fifteen became a student at 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...
. Here he was much impressed by the personality of Henry Fuseli
Henry Fuseli
Henry Fuseli was a British painter, draughtsman, and writer on art, of Swiss origin.-Biography:...
, then professor of painting, formed a friendship, which lasted a lifetime, with Samuel Palmer
Samuel Palmer
Samuel Palmer was a British landscape painter, etcher and printmaker. He was also a prolific writer. Palmer was a key figure in Romanticism in Britain and produced visionary pastoral paintings.-Early life:...
, and had as fellow-students and companions Edward Calvert, Thomas Sidney Cooper
Thomas Sidney Cooper
Thomas Sidney Cooper was an English landscape painter noted for his images of cattle and farm animals.Cooper was born at Canterbury, Kent, and as a small child he began to show strong artistic inclinations, but the circumstances of his family did not allow him to received any systematic training...
, esq., R.A., and Frederick Tatham
Frederick Tatham
Frederick Tatham was a British artist who was a member of the Shoreham Ancients, a group of followers of William Blake.The son of Charles Heathcote Tatham, an architect, Tatham and his brother and sister were all associated with the Ancients...
, whose sister he married. Among other early friends was John Giles, Palmer's cousin, and a man of devout life and deep religion, who deeply influenced the literary taste, general culture, and religious views of his friends.
Blake and the Ancients
When Richmond was sixteen he met William Blake, of whom Palmer and Calvert were devoted admirers, at the house of John LinnellJohn Linnell
John Sidney Linnell is an American musician, is known primarily as one half of Brooklyn, New York alternative rock duo They Might Be Giants...
at Highgate. The same night Richmond walked home across the fields to Fountain Court with the poet and painter, who left on Richmond's mind a profound impression, ‘as though he had been walking with the prophet Isaiah.’ From this time till Blake's death, Richmond followed his guidance and inspiration in art. Traces of Blake's influence are seen in all Richmond's early works, and especially in ‘Abel the Shepherd,’ and in ‘Christ and the Woman of Samaria,’ exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1825. In 1827 he was present at Blake's death, and had the sad privilege of closing the poet's eyes and taking his death mask; he, his wife Julia, and a little band of young enthusiasts, of whom he was the last survivor, followed Blake to his grave in Bunhill Fields
Bunhill Fields
Bunhill Fields is a cemetery in the London Borough of Islington, north of the City of London, and managed by the City of London Corporation. It is about 4 hectares in extent, although historically was much larger....
.
His early work was much inspired by William Blake
William Blake
William Blake was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of both the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age...
, and, with Samuel Palmer
Samuel Palmer
Samuel Palmer was a British landscape painter, etcher and printmaker. He was also a prolific writer. Palmer was a key figure in Romanticism in Britain and produced visionary pastoral paintings.-Early life:...
and Edward Calvert, and joined other youthful devotees at Blake's residence. He was a member of the Blake-influenced group known as "The Ancients
Ancients (art group)
The Ancients , were a group of English artists who were brought together by their attraction to archaism in art and admiration for the work of William Blake. The core members of the Ancients were Samuel Palmer, George Richmond, Edward Calvert...
". This influence faded in later life, when he produced relatively conventional portrait
Portrait
thumb|250px|right|Portrait of [[Thomas Jefferson]] by [[Rembrandt Peale]], 1805. [[New-York Historical Society]].A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expression is predominant. The intent is to display the likeness,...
s.
Later life
In 1828 Richmond went to Paris to study art and anatomy, the expenses of the journey being met from money earned by painting miniatures in England before leaving and in France during his stay. He spent a winter in the schools and hospitals, and saw something of the social life of the Paris of Charles X; at Calais he exchanged pinches of snuff with the exiled Beau BrummellBeau Brummell
Beau Brummell, born as George Bryan Brummell , was the arbiter of men's fashion in Regency England and a friend of the Prince Regent, the future King George IV...
.
On his return to England he spent some time at the White Lodge, Richmond Park, with Lord Sidmouth, who gave him much valuable counsel, and whose portrait by him in watercolour is now in the National Portrait Gallery. In 1830 his contributions to the academy comprised two poetical subjects, ‘The Eve of Separation’ and ‘The Witch,’ from Ben Jonson
Ben Jonson
Benjamin Jonson was an English Renaissance dramatist, poet and actor. A contemporary of William Shakespeare, he is best known for his satirical plays, particularly Volpone, The Alchemist, and Bartholomew Fair, which are considered his best, and his lyric poems...
's ‘Sad Shepherdess,’ and three portraits. In 1831 he exhibited but one picture, ‘The Pilgrim.’
He had now formed a deep attachment to Julia, a beautiful daughter of Charles Heathcote Tatham
Charles Heathcote Tatham
Charles Heathcote Tatham , was an English architect of the early nineteenth century.-Early life:...
, the architect, and when her father revoked the consent he had at first given to their union, the young couple ran away, journeyed to Scotland by coach in the deep snow of a severe winter, and were married according to Scottish law at Gretna Green
Gretna Green
Gretna Green is a village in the south of Scotland famous for runaway weddings. It is in Dumfries and Galloway, near the mouth of the River Esk and was historically the first village in Scotland, following the old coaching route from London to Edinburgh. Gretna Green has a railway station serving...
in January 1831. This act proved the turning-point of Richmond's career, and determined him to adopt portraiture as the readiest means of earning a living. Soon after the young couple had set up house in Northumberland Street, they were found and befriended by Sir Robert Harry Inglis, and it was at his instance that the portrait in watercolour of William Wilberforce
William Wilberforce
William Wilberforce was a British politician, a philanthropist and a leader of the movement to abolish the slave trade. A native of Kingston upon Hull, Yorkshire, he began his political career in 1780, eventually becoming the independent Member of Parliament for Yorkshire...
, afterwards engraved by Samuel Cousins
Samuel Cousins
Samuel Cousins was an English mezzotint engraver, born at Exeter.He was preeminently the interpreter of Sir Thomas Lawrence, his contemporary. During his apprenticeship to S. W. Reynolds he engraved many of the best amongst the three hundred and sixty little mezzotints illustrating the works of...
, was painted by Richmond; this picture, by its happy treatment of a difficult subject, and by the excellence of the engraving after it, achieved a world-wide success. There followed immediately many successful watercolour portraits, among which may be mentioned those of Lord Teignmouth
Charles John Shore, 2nd Baron Teignmouth
Charles John Shore, 2nd Baron Teignmouth was a British Conservative politician.-Background and education:Charles John Shore was born in Calcutta, the son of John Shore, 1st Baron Teignmouth and Charlotte, only daughter of James Cornish, a medical practitioner at Teignmouth...
, the Frys, the Gurneys, the Buxtons, the Upchers, and the Thorntons, all traceable to Inglis's friendly introduction.
In 1837 Richmond was forced to take a rest for the sake of his health, which had broken down through overwork and the loss of three children within a very short time. He went to Rome with his wife and their surviving child Thomas, accompanied by Samuel Palmer and his bride, a daughter of John Linnell. During his stay in Italy, which lasted about two years, he made studies and copies of many of the subjects on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, having a scaffolding erected so as to reach the vault; here he made the acquaintance of Cardinal Mezzofanti, of whose colloquial English he always spoke with wonder. Subsequently he visited Naples, Pompeii, and the cities of Tuscany with Mr. Baring, for whom he painted a picture of 'The Journey to Emmaus.' While still in Rome he painted a picture of ‘Comus,’ afterwards exhibited. In Rome Richmond made many valuable friends, including Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone (then Miss Glynn), Dr. (now Sir) Henry Acland, the Severns, Thomas Baring
Thomas Baring
Thomas Charles Baring DL was a British banker and Conservative Party politician.Baring, informally called "T.C." or "Charley" to distinguish him from the other Thomases, was the son of the Right Reverend Charles Baring, Bishop of Durham, younger son of Sir Thomas Baring, 2nd Baronet. His mother...
, Lord Farrer
Thomas Farrer, 1st Baron Farrer
Thomas Henry Farrer, 1st Baron Farrer was an English civil servant and statistician.Farrer was the son of Thomas Farrer, a solicitor in Lincoln's Inn Fields. Born in London, he was educated at Eton College and Balliol College, Oxford, where he graduated in 1840...
, and John Sterling
John Sterling (author)
John Sterling , was a British author.He was born at Kames Castle on the Isle of Bute. He belonged to a family of Scottish origin which had settled in Ireland during the Cromwellian period...
, and his house on the Tarpeian rock
Tarpeian Rock
The Tarpeian Rock was a steep cliff of the southern summit of the Capitoline Hill, overlooking the Roman Forum in Ancient Rome. It was used during the Roman Republic as an execution site. Murderers, traitors, perjurors, and larcenous slaves, if convicted by the quaestores parricidii, were flung...
was a meeting-place for these young English travellers.
John Sterling, in letters to Richard Chenevix Trench
Richard Chenevix Trench
Richard Chenevix Trench was an Anglican archbishop and poet.-Life:He was born at Dublin, in Ireland, son of the Dublin writer Melesina Trench, his elder brother was Francis Chenevix Trench. He went to school at Harrow, and graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge in 1829. In 1830 he visited Spain...
, writes of Richmond as the most interesting young artist he had met. In after years he was one of the original members of the Sterling Club. He returned to England in 1839, and resumed his practice as a portrait-painter, revisiting Rome, however, with his brother Thomas in 1840. Then, as related in ‘Præterita,’ Richmond made the friendship of Mr. Ruskin, whom he was afterwards the means of introducing to Thomas Carlyle. About the same period Richmond travelled in Germany with John Hullah, and at Munich he studied for a while under Peter von Cornelius
Peter von Cornelius
Peter von Cornelius was a German painter.Cornelius was born in Düsseldorf.His father, who was inspector of the Düsseldorf gallery, died in 1799, and the young Cornelius was stimulated to extraordinary exertions...
.
Richmond was a man of remarkable social gifts and of distinguished courtesy; his relations both professionally and socially with the leading men of his time, his good memory, and his brilliant powers of description, made his conversation extremely interesting. He was a member of ‘The Club’ (Johnson's), Nobody's Friends, Grillion's Club, to which he was limner, and the Athenaeum Club, London
Athenaeum Club, London
The Athenaeum Club, usually just referred to as the Athenaeum, is a notable London club with its Clubhouse located at 107 Pall Mall, London, England, at the corner of Waterloo Place....
. A staunch churchman, he was intimate for years with all the leaders of the tractarian movement. He received honorary degrees from the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, was a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries
Society of Antiquaries of London
The Society of Antiquaries of London is a learned society "charged by its Royal Charter of 1751 with 'the encouragement, advancement and furtherance of the study and knowledge of the antiquities and history of this and other countries'." It is based at Burlington House, Piccadilly, London , and is...
, an honorary fellow of University College, London, and of the Royal Institute of British Architects
Royal Institute of British Architects
The Royal Institute of British Architects is a professional body for architects primarily in the United Kingdom, but also internationally.-History:...
, and a member of the Company of Painter-Stainers of the City of London.
In 1846 he was nominated by Mr. Gladstone to succeed Sir Augustus Wall Callcott
Augustus Wall Callcott
Sir Augustus Wall Callcott was an English landscape painter-Life and work:Callcott was born in Kensington gravel pits, London. His first study was music and he sang for several years in the choir of Westminster Abbey...
on the council of the government schools of design, a post which he held for three years; and ten years later he was appointed a member of the royal commission to determine the site of the National Gallery
National gallery
The National Gallery is an art gallery on Trafalgar Square, London, United Kingdom.National Gallery may also refer to:*Armenia: National Gallery of Armenia, Yerevan*Australia:**National Gallery of Australia, Canberra...
, when he was alone in voting for its removal from Trafalgar Square to South Kensington. In 1871, and again in 1874, Mr. Gladstone pressed upon him the directorship of the National Gallery, but without success.
He died at his house, 20 York Street, Portman Square, where he had lived and worked for fifty-four years, on 19 March 1896, retaining almost to the end a vigorous and clear memory. He was buried at Highgate cemetery
Highgate Cemetery
Highgate Cemetery is a cemetery located in north London, England. It is designated Grade I on the English Heritage Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in England. It is divided into two parts, named the East and West cemetery....
, and is commemorated by a tablet designed by his sons to be placed in the crypt of St. Paul's Cathedral, close to the graves of Wren and of Leighton. He left ten children and forty grandchildren.
His surviving sons included Canon Richmond of Carlisle and Sir William Blake Richmond
William Blake Richmond
Sir William Blake Richmond KCB , English painter and decorator, was born in London. His father, George Richmond, R.A...
, K.C.B., R.A. Of his daughters, three married respectively Mr. F. W. Farrer, Archdeacon Buchanan, canon of Salisbury, and Mr. Justice Kennedy.
Works
Crayon
A crayon is a stick of colored wax, charcoal, chalk, or other materials used for writing, coloring, drawing, and other methods of illustration. A crayon made of oiled chalk is called an oil pastel; when made of pigment with a dry binder, it is simply a pastel; both are popular media for color...
and watercolour. After 1846 he began to paint in oil
Oil painting
Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments that are bound with a medium of drying oil—especially in early modern Europe, linseed oil. Often an oil such as linseed was boiled with a resin such as pine resin or even frankincense; these were called 'varnishes' and were prized for their body...
, and left a large number of excellent portraits in this medium. Many of his portraits were reproduced as engraving
Engraving
Engraving is the practice of incising a design on to a hard, usually flat surface, by cutting grooves into it. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or glass are engraved, or may provide an intaglio printing plate, of copper or another metal, for printing...
s. The Victorian Exhibition held at the New Gallery in the winter of 1891–2 contained eight of his portraits in oil, forty in crayon, and two (Mrs. Fry and Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, both dated 1845) in watercolour.
The oil pictures included Earl Granville, Archbishop Longley (1863), Bishops Selwyn and Wilberforce, Canon Liddon, and Sir George Gilbert Scott
George Gilbert Scott
Sir George Gilbert Scott was an English architect of the Victorian Age, chiefly associated with the design, building and renovation of churches, cathedrals and workhouses...
, R.A. (1877). Among the crayon portraits were Cardinal Newman (1844), John Keble
John Keble
John Keble was an English churchman and poet, one of the leaders of the Oxford Movement, and gave his name to Keble College, Oxford.-Early life:...
, Henry Hallam
Henry Hallam
Henry Hallam was an English historian.-Life:The only son of John Hallam, canon of Windsor and dean of Bristol, Henry Hallam was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford, graduating in 1799...
(1843), Charlotte Brontë
Charlotte Brontë
Charlotte Brontë was an English novelist and poet, the eldest of the three Brontë sisters who survived into adulthood, whose novels are English literature standards...
(1850), Elizabeth Gaskell
Elizabeth Gaskell
Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell, née Stevenson , often referred to simply as Mrs Gaskell, was a British novelist and short story writer during the Victorian era...
(1851), Lord Macaulay (1844 and 1850), Sir Charles Lyell
Charles Lyell
Sir Charles Lyell, 1st Baronet, Kt FRS was a British lawyer and the foremost geologist of his day. He is best known as the author of Principles of Geology, which popularised James Hutton's concepts of uniformitarianism – the idea that the earth was shaped by slow-moving forces still in operation...
(1853), Michael Faraday
Michael Faraday
Michael Faraday, FRS was an English chemist and physicist who contributed to the fields of electromagnetism and electrochemistry....
(1852), and Lord Lyndhurst (1847).
He also drew or painted Queen Adelaide
Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen
Princess Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen was the queen consort of the United Kingdom and of Hanover as spouse of William IV of the United Kingdom. Adelaide, the capital city of South Australia, is named after her.-Early life:Adelaide was born on 13 August 1792 at Meiningen, Thuringia, Germany...
, Prince George (now Duke) of Cambridge, and the Prince of Wales, when a boy; Lord Palmerston, Lord Aberdeen, the Duke of Newcastle, and Mr. Gladstone; Cardinal Manning, Archbishop Tait, and Dean Stanley; Sir Thomas Watson, Syme, Alison, and Sir James Paget; Prescott, Mrs. Beecher-Stowe, Darwin, Owen, and Tyndall, and a host of others. Richmond was elected an associate of 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...
in 1857, a royal academician in 1866, and some years before his death he joined the ranks of the retired academicians. He took a warm interest in the winter exhibitions of the old masters at the Royal Academy.
On the death of his wife in 1881 he gave up regular work, but still painted occasionally and occupied himself with sculpture
Sculpture
Sculpture is three-dimensional artwork created by shaping or combining hard materials—typically stone such as marble—or metal, glass, or wood. Softer materials can also be used, such as clay, textiles, plastics, polymers and softer metals...
. He had previously, in 1862, designed and executed a recumbent statue in marble of Charles James Blomfield
Charles James Blomfield
Charles James Blomfield was a British divine, and a Church of England bishop for 32 years.-Early life:Blomfield was born in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk and educated at the local grammar school and at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he won the Browne medals for Latin and Greek odes, and the Craven...
, bishop of London, for St. Paul's Cathedral, and in 1882 he executed the marble bust of Dr. Pusey, now in Pusey House, Oxford
Pusey House, Oxford
Pusey House is a religious institution located in St Giles', Oxford, immediately to the south of Pusey Street. It is firmly rooted in the Anglo-Catholic tradition of the Church of England...
, and presented a bust of John Keble
John Keble
John Keble was an English churchman and poet, one of the leaders of the Oxford Movement, and gave his name to Keble College, Oxford.-Early life:...
to Keble College. Among his later works in oil were portraits of Harvey Goodwin
Harvey Goodwin
The Rt Rev Harvey Goodwin, MA was a Cambridge academic and clergyman, Bishop of Carlisle from 1869 until his death.-Life:...
, bishop of Carlisle, Edward King
Edward King (English bishop)
Edward King was an Anglican bishop.-Life:He was the second son of the Revd Walker King, Archdeacon of Rochester and rector of Stone, Kent, and grandson of the Revd Walker King, Bishop of Rochester; his nephew was the Revd Robert Stuart King, who played football for England in 1882.King graduated...
, bishop of Lincoln, and Archibald Campbell Tait
Archibald Campbell Tait
Archibald Campbell Tait was a priest in the Church of England and an Archbishop of Canterbury.-Life:Born in Edinburgh, Scotland, Tait was educated at the Royal High School and at the Edinburgh Academy, where he was twice elected dux. His parents were Presbyterian but he early turned towards the...
, archbishop of Canterbury. In 1887, on the occasion of Queen Victoria's jubilee, he painted a portrait of the third Marquis of Salisbury (the last work he executed), which was presented to the queen by the marquis's wife.
His success as a portrait-painter was due as much to his power of drawing out the best from his sitter in conversation as to skill in delineation. Being a very skilful and rapid draughtsman, he was able, while putting himself into sympathy with his sitter, to report the happiest moment and fleeting changes of expression, and to get out of his subject more than at first sight appeared to be there. His ideal of portraiture was ‘the truth lovingly told;’ and he never consciously flattered. He was also a most industrious and clever sketcher from nature, and he produced (for his own pleasure and instruction) hundreds of drawings in pencil and watercolour, many of great beauty, of figure and landscape. To his skill as a portrait-painter were added great knowledge of Italian painting and sound judgment in matters of art, and the government were often glad to avail themselves of his services and advice.
In the National Portrait Gallery are portraits by him of Lord Sidmouth (watercolour); Lord-chancellors Cranworth and Hatherley, Baron Cleasby and Lord Cardwell (oil paintings); Samuel Rogers
Samuel Rogers
Samuel Rogers was an English poet, during his lifetime one of the most celebrated, although his fame has long since been eclipsed by his Romantic colleagues and friends Wordsworth, Coleridge and Byron...
, the poet, and John Keble (crayon drawings), both bequeathed by the painter; besides drawings, purchased in July 1896, of Earl Canning, Viscount Hill, Sir George Cornewall Lewis
George Cornewall Lewis
Sir George Cornewall Lewis, 2nd Baronet PC was a British statesman and man of letters.-Family:He was born in London, the son of Thomas Frankland Lewis of Harpton Court, Radnorshire and his wife Harriet Cornewall...
, Canon Liddon, Archbishop Longley, Sir Charles Lyell, Cardinal Newman, Dr. Pusey, Sir Gilbert Scott
Gilbert Scott
Gilbert Scott may refer to several of a family of British architects:* Sir George Gilbert Scott , who was principally known for his architectural designs for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and St Pancras Station...
, Sir Robert Harry Inglis, and Bishop Wilberforce
Samuel Wilberforce
Samuel Wilberforce was an English bishop in the Church of England, third son of William Wilberforce. Known as "Soapy Sam", Wilberforce was one of the greatest public speakers of his time and place...
.
See also
- Portrait of Thomas Macaulay in article about the same.
- Portrait of Charlotte BrontëCharlotte BrontëCharlotte Brontë was an English novelist and poet, the eldest of the three Brontë sisters who survived into adulthood, whose novels are English literature standards...
in article about the same. - John CarterJohn Carter (mouth artist)John Carter was an English silk weaver and artist, who, after an accident left him paralysed from below the neck, learnt to draw, paint and write by holding the pencil, pen or brush in his mouth...
(1815-1850), paralysed mouth artist, befriended by Richmond.
External links
- George Richmond at artcyclopedia.