Sydney Curnow Vosper
Encyclopedia
Sydney Curnow Vosper RWS
, RWA
(29 October 1866 – 10 July 1942) was a painter and etcher of landscapes and figure subjects. His later work has a close association with Wales
and Brittany
. His most famous work is Salem (1908), which shows an old woman in the Welsh national costume, with Welsh hat
and shawl
, attending a congregation at Salem Chapel, Cefncymerau
.
in 1866 to Samuel, a brewer, and Eleanor Vosper. He attended King’s College school
in Taunton
, Somerset
, and Plymouth College
. Following this he spent three years as an architect’s apprentice before beginning his artistic career as an illustrator
in London. He would later leave to study for three years at the Académie Colarossi
in Paris
, studying under Raphaël Collin
. As a watercolour painter, Vosper began exhibiting his work in local art galleries throughout England, but also at the Paris Salon and the Royal Academy
. Vosper painted landscapes but is perhaps best known for his figure painting. A favoured subject was the town and people of Le Faouët
in Brittany
.
A turning point in Vosper's work occurred when he married Constance James, the daughter of Frank T. James, a solicitor and former mayor of Merthyr Tydfil
. This connection to Wales would change his output, and in his later career his paintings would be heavily influenced by Welsh culture and life. He died on 10 July, 1942 at the Teign House Hotel, Shaldon
, Devon
, having also lived at Westbourne Terrace in the Bayswater
district of London
.
Chapel in Cefncymerau (modern day Llanbedr
, Wales
), with its central figure dressed in traditional Welsh costume, wrapped in a shawl and clutching a Bible. The painting, in watercolour
on a piece of paper measuring 71.1 x 69.8cm was completed in 1908 and exhibited in the Royal Academy
in London in 1909. Of the eight people in the painting, seven of them sat for Vosper, including the central character who was modelled by Siân Owen (1837-1927) of Ty’n-y-fawnog. A dummy was used for the eighth, but only one was an actual member of Salem. The painting was bought in 1909 in by industrialist William Hesketh Lever
for 100 guineas. The painting gained mass appeal in Britain when it was used to promote Lever Brothers
' Sunlight soap
. The soap bars came with collectable tokens that could be exchanged for prints of the painting, which resulted in many homes owning a copy, during a period when few homes owned any form of art.
In 1933 an article about the picture appeared in the Welsh language magazine Y Ford Gron (The Round Table) and in 1937 more copies of the print were sold for sixpence each through the Urdd
. It was used in other press article and the Cymru Fydd calendar into the 1950s. In March 1942 it was described by Yr Aelwyd as ".. one of the most beautiful pictures of the religious life of Wales in old times .."
The painting gained notoriety, when it was believed that the face of the devil could be seen in the folds of Siân Owen's shawl. Though this may be a reaction to the other often noticed illusion of a face staring through the chapel window, which in turn made people look for other supernatural elements or mistakenly thinking the face was in the shawl. The artist denied that he ever intentionally painted any such detail into the watercolour. The painting also became extremely popular in Wales, offering to a population, which was rapidly becoming industrialised, a reminder of a rural past and a close connection to the Nonconformist religious background of the country. The painting is one of the most iconic images of Wales ever created.
The work is presently exhibited at the Lady Lever Art Gallery
at Port Sunlight
in Cheshire
, though there have been several request for the painting to be moved permanently to a Welsh museum.
Siân Owen would feature in a second of Vosper's works, Market Day in Old Wales (c.1910).
Royal Watercolour Society
The Royal Watercolour Society is an English institution of painters working in watercolours...
, RWA
Royal West of England Academy
The Royal West of England Academy is an art gallery where Queens Road meets Whiteladies Road, in Bristol, England.- History :The Academy was the first art gallery in Bristol. Its foundation was financed by a bequest of £2000 in the will of Ellen Sharples in 1849, and a group of artists in...
(29 October 1866 – 10 July 1942) was a painter and etcher of landscapes and figure subjects. His later work has a close association with Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
and Brittany
Brittany
Brittany is a cultural and administrative region in the north-west of France. Previously a kingdom and then a duchy, Brittany was united to the Kingdom of France in 1532 as a province. Brittany has also been referred to as Less, Lesser or Little Britain...
. His most famous work is Salem (1908), which shows an old woman in the Welsh national costume, with Welsh hat
Welsh hat
The Welsh hat worn by women as part of Welsh national costume is a tall stovepipe-style hat, similar to a top hat, or the Pilgrim hat. It is still worn by women, and particularly schoolgirls, in Wales on St David's Day, but rarely on other occasions....
and shawl
Shawl
A shawl is a simple item of clothing, loosely worn over the shoulders, upper body and arms, and sometimes also over the head. It is usually a rectangular or square piece of cloth, that is often folded to make a triangle but can also be triangular in shape...
, attending a congregation at Salem Chapel, Cefncymerau
Llanbedr
Llanbedr is a village in the Ardudwy area of Gwynedd, Wales.The village originally grew around the slate quarrying industry. Attractions in Llanbedr include Neolithic standing stones and Bronze Age hut circles. The Morfa Dyffryn sand dunes and Mochras lie nearby...
.
Personal history
Vosper was born in Stonehouse, PlymouthStonehouse, Plymouth
East Stonehouse is one of three towns that were amalgamated into modern-day Plymouth. West Stonehouse was a village that is within the current Mount Edgcumbe Country Park in Cornwall...
in 1866 to Samuel, a brewer, and Eleanor Vosper. He attended King’s College school
King's College (Taunton)
King's College is a coeducational, secondary boarding school in Taunton, Somerset, England. It is an independent school of 430 pupils aged 13 to 18, including about 300 boarders. The head of the school is currently Richard Biggs, who started his first academic year in the winter of...
in Taunton
Taunton
Taunton is the county town of Somerset, England. The town, including its suburbs, had an estimated population of 61,400 in 2001. It is the largest town in the shire county of Somerset....
, Somerset
Somerset
The ceremonial and non-metropolitan county of Somerset in South West England borders Bristol and Gloucestershire to the north, Wiltshire to the east, Dorset to the south-east, and Devon to the south-west. It is partly bounded to the north and west by the Bristol Channel and the estuary of the...
, and Plymouth College
Plymouth College
Plymouth College is a co-educational independent school in Plymouth, Devon, England, for day and boarding pupils from the ages of 11 to 18...
. Following this he spent three years as an architect’s apprentice before beginning his artistic career as an illustrator
Illustrator
An Illustrator is a narrative artist who specializes in enhancing writing by providing a visual representation that corresponds to the content of the associated text...
in London. He would later leave to study for three years at the Académie Colarossi
Académie Colarossi
The Académie Colarossi is an art school founded by the Italian sculptor Filippo Colarossi. First located on the Île de la Cité, it moved in the 1870s to 10 rue de la Grande-Chaumière in the VIe arrondissement of Paris, France....
in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, studying under Raphaël Collin
Raphaël Collin
Raphaël Collin was born and raised in Paris, where he became a prominent academic painter and in later life a professor at the Académie des Beaux-Arts...
. As a watercolour painter, Vosper began exhibiting his work in local art galleries throughout England, but also at the Paris Salon and 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...
. Vosper painted landscapes but is perhaps best known for his figure painting. A favoured subject was the town and people of Le Faouët
Le Faouët, Morbihan
Le Faouët is a commune in the Morbihan department of the region of Brittany in north-western France.The Breton language name of the commune means Beech forest. The sixteenth century timber market halls are a noted feature of the town and two medieval chapels lies within the boundaries of the...
in Brittany
Brittany
Brittany is a cultural and administrative region in the north-west of France. Previously a kingdom and then a duchy, Brittany was united to the Kingdom of France in 1532 as a province. Brittany has also been referred to as Less, Lesser or Little Britain...
.
A turning point in Vosper's work occurred when he married Constance James, the daughter of Frank T. James, a solicitor and former mayor of Merthyr Tydfil
Merthyr Tydfil
Merthyr Tydfil is a town in Wales, with a population of about 30,000. Although once the largest town in Wales, it is now ranked as the 15th largest urban area in Wales. It also gives its name to a county borough, which has a population of around 55,000. It is located in the historic county of...
. This connection to Wales would change his output, and in his later career his paintings would be heavily influenced by Welsh culture and life. He died on 10 July, 1942 at the Teign House Hotel, Shaldon
Shaldon
Shaldon is a village in South Devon, England. It is located opposite Teignmouth in South Devon, England and situated on the River Teign. It has been described as "a quaint English drinking village, with a fishing problem". The village is a popular bathing place and is characterised by Georgian...
, Devon
Devon
Devon is a large county in southwestern England. The county is sometimes referred to as Devonshire, although the term is rarely used inside the county itself as the county has never been officially "shired", it often indicates a traditional or historical context.The county shares borders with...
, having also lived at Westbourne Terrace in the Bayswater
Bayswater
Bayswater is an area of west London in the City of Westminster and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea to the west . It is a built-up district located 3 miles west-north-west of Charing Cross, bordering the north of Hyde Park over Kensington Gardens and having a population density of...
district of London
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...
.
Salem
Vosper's most famous work is Salem, a watercolour of the interior of Salem BaptistBaptist
Baptists comprise a group of Christian denominations and churches that subscribe to a doctrine that baptism should be performed only for professing believers , and that it must be done by immersion...
Chapel in Cefncymerau (modern day Llanbedr
Llanbedr
Llanbedr is a village in the Ardudwy area of Gwynedd, Wales.The village originally grew around the slate quarrying industry. Attractions in Llanbedr include Neolithic standing stones and Bronze Age hut circles. The Morfa Dyffryn sand dunes and Mochras lie nearby...
, Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
), with its central figure dressed in traditional Welsh costume, wrapped in a shawl and clutching a Bible. The painting, in watercolour
on a piece of paper measuring 71.1 x 69.8cm was completed in 1908 and exhibited in 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 London in 1909. Of the eight people in the painting, seven of them sat for Vosper, including the central character who was modelled by Siân Owen (1837-1927) of Ty’n-y-fawnog. A dummy was used for the eighth, but only one was an actual member of Salem. The painting was bought in 1909 in by industrialist William Hesketh Lever
William Lever, 1st Viscount Leverhulme
William Hesketh Lever, 1st Viscount Leverhulme was an English industrialist, philanthropist, and politician....
for 100 guineas. The painting gained mass appeal in Britain when it was used to promote Lever Brothers
Lever Brothers
Lever Brothers was a British manufacturer founded in 1885 by William Hesketh Lever and his brother, James Darcy Lever . The brothers had invested in and promoted a new soap making process invented by chemist William Hough Watson, it was a huge success...
' Sunlight soap
Sunlight (cleaning product)
Sunlight is a brand of household soap originally produced by the British company Lever Brothers in 1884. It was the world's first packaged, branded laundry soap. Designed for washing clothes and general household use, the success of the product led to the name for the company's village for its...
. The soap bars came with collectable tokens that could be exchanged for prints of the painting, which resulted in many homes owning a copy, during a period when few homes owned any form of art.
In 1933 an article about the picture appeared in the Welsh language magazine Y Ford Gron (The Round Table) and in 1937 more copies of the print were sold for sixpence each through the Urdd
Urdd Gobaith Cymru
dde|200px|thumb|The Urdd logoUrdd Gobaith Cymru, literally, the Welsh League of Hope, but normally translated as the Welsh League of Youth, or merely referred to as the Urdd, is a Welsh-medium youth movement with over 1,500 branches and over 50,000 members...
. It was used in other press article and the Cymru Fydd calendar into the 1950s. In March 1942 it was described by Yr Aelwyd as ".. one of the most beautiful pictures of the religious life of Wales in old times .."
The painting gained notoriety, when it was believed that the face of the devil could be seen in the folds of Siân Owen's shawl. Though this may be a reaction to the other often noticed illusion of a face staring through the chapel window, which in turn made people look for other supernatural elements or mistakenly thinking the face was in the shawl. The artist denied that he ever intentionally painted any such detail into the watercolour. The painting also became extremely popular in Wales, offering to a population, which was rapidly becoming industrialised, a reminder of a rural past and a close connection to the Nonconformist religious background of the country. The painting is one of the most iconic images of Wales ever created.
The work is presently exhibited at the Lady Lever Art Gallery
Lady Lever Art Gallery
The Lady Lever Art Gallery was founded in 1922 by Sunlight Soap magnate, William Lever, 1st Viscount Leverhulme, and dedicated to the memory of his wife....
at Port Sunlight
Port Sunlight
Port Sunlight is a model village, suburb and electoral ward in the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral, Merseyside, England. It is located between Lower Bebington and New Ferry, on the Wirral Peninsula. Between 1894 and 1974 it formed part of Bebington urban district within the county of Cheshire...
in Cheshire
Cheshire
Cheshire is a ceremonial county in North West England. Cheshire's county town is the city of Chester, although its largest town is Warrington. Other major towns include Widnes, Congleton, Crewe, Ellesmere Port, Runcorn, Macclesfield, Winsford, Northwich, and Wilmslow...
, though there have been several request for the painting to be moved permanently to a Welsh museum.
Siân Owen would feature in a second of Vosper's works, Market Day in Old Wales (c.1910).