Sydney Curnow Vosper
Sydney Curnow Vosper | |
|---|---|
| Nationality | English |
| Education | Académie Colarossi, Paris |
Sydney Curnow Vosper RWS, RWA (October 29, 1866 - July 10, 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 women in the Welsh national costume, with Welsh hat and shawl, attending a congreation at Salem Chapel, Cefncymerau.
Vosper was born in Stonehouse, Plymouth 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 throught 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 occured when he married Constance James, the daughter of 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.
Salem
Vosper's most famous work is Salem, a watercolour of the interior of Salem Chapel in Cefncymerau (modern day Llanbedr), with its central figure of Siân Owen, dressed in traditional welsh costume, wrapped in a shawl and clutching a Bible. The painting 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, a dummy was used for the eighth, but only one was an actual member of Salem.[1] 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,[2] which resulted in many homes owning a copy, during a period when few homes owned any form of art.
The painting gained noteriety, when it was believed that the face of the devil could be seen in the folds of Siân Owen's 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.
Siân Owen would feature in a second of Vosper's works, Market Day in Old Wales (c.1910).
Bibliography
- Grant M. Waters : Dictionary of British Artists Working 1900-1950 (Eastbourne Fine Art, 1975) ISBN 978-0904722376
References
- ^ The Welsh Academy Encyclopaedia of Wales. John Davies, Nigel Jenkins, Menna Baines and Peredur Lynch (2008) pg795 ISBN 9780708319536
- ^ Salem exhibition visits castle BBC Online