Benjamin Williams Leader

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Self-Portrait (1884)
Tintern Abbey

Benjamin Williams Leader (actually Benjamin Leader Williams) RA (born March 12, 1831 in Worcester , † March 22, 1923 in Surrey ) was an English landscape painter . His work mainly includes views from Worcestershire , Wales and Surrey as well as the Thames , and also from Scotland , where he has stayed several times in the course of his life.

Life

Leader attended the Royal Grammar School Worcester . He then worked as a draftsman in his father's engineering office, who was an avid hobby painter and whom he often accompanied on excursions to the Severn River . During this time, he also took evening classes at the Worcester School of Design .

From 1854 Leader attended the Royal Academy of Arts in London, where he devoted himself extensively to landscape painting in his free time. After only a year, his painting Cottage Children blowing bubbles was approved by the Academy for exhibition; an American art lover later paid the respectable sum of £ 50 for it. From that time until 1922, Leader showed his work at the Academy exhibitions every summer.

Without finishing his studies, Leader had increasing commercial success just a few years after his first picture was sold. Many of his best pictures came directly into the possession of private art collectors through the art trade and were never shown in public. The most famous works during his lifetime include: In the Evening there shall be light and February Fill Dyke .

From 1898 Leader was a full member of the Royal Academy of Arts.

literature

  • Dictionary of National Biography on the multimedia CD Infopedia UK, Softkey Multimedia Inc., 1996.
  • Marcus Halliwell: Highland Landscapes - Paintings of Scotland in the 19th Century. Garamond Publishers Ltd, London, 1990, ISBN 1-85583-001-9 , p. 24.

Web links

Commons : Benjamin Williams Leader  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Benjamin Williams Leader, RA in the database of the Royal Academy of Arts , English, accessed on May 23, 2013.
personal data
SURNAME Leader, Benjamin Williams
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Williams, Benjamin Leader (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English landscape painter
DATE OF BIRTH March 12, 1831
PLACE OF BIRTH Worcester
DATE OF DEATH March 22, 1923
Place of death Surrey