3363 x 5025 px | 28,5 x 42,5 cm | 11,2 x 16,8 inches | 300dpi
Date de la prise de vue:
28 janvier 2008
Informations supplémentaires:
William Powell Frith (19 January 1819 – 9 November 1909), was an English painter specialising in portraits and Victorian era narratives, who was elected to the Royal Academy in 1852. Born in Aldfield, North Yorkshire, Frith was encouraged to take up art by his father, a hotelier in Harrogate. He moved to London in 1835 where he began his formal art studies at Sass’s Academy in Charlotte Street, before attending the Royal Academy Schools. Frith started his career as a portrait painter and first exhibited at the British Institution in 1838. In the 1840s he often based works on the literary output of writers such as Charles Dickens, whose portrait he painted, and Laurence Sterne. He was also a member of The Clique, which also included Richard Dadd. The principal influence on his work was the hugely popular domestic subjects painted by Sir David Wilkie. Wilkie's famous painting The Chelsea Pensioners was a spur to the creation of Frith's own most famous compositions. Following the precedent of Wilkie, but also imitating the work of his friend Dickens, Frith created complex multi-figure compositions depicting the full range of the Victorian class system, meeting and interacting in public places. In Ramsgate Sands, Life at the Seaside (1854) he depicted visitors and entertainers at the seaside resort. He followed this with The Derby Day, depicting scenes among the crowd at the race at Epsom Downs, which was based on photographic studies by Robert Howlett. This 1858 composition was bought by Jacob Bell for £1, 500. It was so popular that it had to be protected by a specially installed rail when shown at the Royal Academy of Arts. Another well-known painting was The Railway Station, a scene of Paddington station. In 1865 he was chosen to paint the Marriage of the Prince of Wales. Later in his career he painted two series of five pictures each, telling moral stories in the manner of William Hogarth. These were the Road to Ruin (1878), about the dangers of gambling,
