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Atkinson Grimshaw John Atkinson Grimshaw was born and died in Leeds. His early landscapes were influenced by Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood ideals of painstaking detail, but he later developed a special kind of industrial landscape, lit by moonlight or gaslight, or both. Like Lowry in the 20th-century, these urban scenes were very popular with the public (and still are), less so with the official art world. There are works by him in London (Tate) and in Gateshead, Harrogate, Leeds, Preston and Scarborough. Source: The Penguin Dictionary of Art and Artists (Penguin Reference Books) In the 1880s the Yorkshire painter John Atkinson Grimshaw had a studio in Manresa Road, Chelsea, not far from Whistler. He was visited by Whistler, who remarked with uncharacteristic modesty: 'I considered myself the inventor of Nocturnes until I saw Grimmy's moonlit pictures. Whistler was referring to works such as Grimshaw's Nightfall down the Thames. His remarkable landscapes, created at dusk or at night, record the rain and mist, the puddles and smoky fog of late Victorian industrial England with great poetry. Some of Grimshaw's finest work are of his home town, Leeds, but he also painted Glasgow, Liverpool, Scarborough, Whitby and London. Tress Shadows on the Park Wall, one of several paintings of Roundhay Park, Leeds, was probaly painted near Old Park Road, a view little different today. Although they evoke the Victorian suburban night vividly, Grimshaw's pictures, unlike Whistler's, are sharply focused, almost photographic, and clearly delineated in their careful application of oil paint. The effect is very different from the Nocturnes of the greater artist, for they belong to a far older tradition of moonlit landscapes. Yet as the first explorations of the beauty of the urban landscape, rather than rural idylls, they have a welcome originality. He made one or two ventures in fairy painting, notably Iris. Iris was the messenger of the gods, who was sent to wither flowers in autumn, but stopped to admire the waterlilies, and was turned into a rainbow. The figure was drawn from the former actress Miss Agnes Leefe, Grimshaw's studio assistant and model as well as companion to his wife and children. Source: Victorian Painting Further Reading: Atkinson Grimshaw Atkinson Grimshaw Prints |
