George Frederic Watts

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Self-portrait as a young man
Watts around 1900
The oil painting entitled Choosing shows Watts' wife Ellen Terry , around 1864

George Frederic Watts RA (born February 23, 1817 in London , † June 1, 1904 in Compton , Surrey) was an important painter and sculptor in Victorian England . His pictorial work includes large frescoes and history paintings as well as allegorical and mythological representations; Watts was more important as a portraitist of prominent contemporaries. As a sculptor he is known for his classical sculptures.

life and work

Watts turned to historical painting in his youth, but in later years worked primarily as a portrait painter. His then wife Ellen Terry was his model for the portrait entitled “Choosing” . He married the 17-year-old actress at the age of 47, but the marriage did not last even a year. Other personalities he portrayed were the poet Alfred Tennyson , the philosopher John Stuart Mill , the premier William Ewart Gladstone, and the writer and painter John Ruskin . Most of the many portraits are now in London's National Portrait Gallery and Watts thus laid the foundation for their collection.

George Robinson, 1st Marquess of Ripon (1827-1909)

One of the most remarkable historical pictures and paintings of mythological and allegorical content is the award-winning design Caractus, executed in 1843 for Westminster Palace , is led in chains through the city of Rome . Watts stayed in Italy from 1843 to 1847, where he specifically studied the Venetian masters of the 16th century. He then lived again in London, where in 1847 he again won a first prize with his picture Alfred the Great calls on the Saxons to face the Danes in a sea battle . Between 1853 and 1859 the Justice fresco was created in Lincoln's Inn . Watts created other works in the town house of Manchester ( Good Samaritan ) and in the Poets' Hall of the House of Parliament ( St. George , ambushing the dragon). Also worth mentioning are: Thetis , Paolo and Francesca da Rimini , Ariadne as well as love and life . His compositions and his style, influenced by Italy's old masters, earned Watts the nickname “England's painter-poet”.

In middle age Watts renewed the experiences he had made in the field of plastic in his youth and in Italy . This is how the bust of Clytia was created in 1867 and a little later the seated figure of Henry Vassall-Fox, 3rd Baron Holland , father of his patron Henry Edward Fox, 4th Baron Holland, executed together with the sculptor Joseph Edgar Boehm . In 1870 he began the equestrian statue of Hugh Lupus Grosvenor, 1st Duke of Westminster , which he completed in 1881. His repeatedly performed composition Physical Energy was set up in Kensington Gardens after his death .

In 1867 Watts was elected an associate and soon thereafter a full member of the Royal Academy of Arts . He was later also inducted into the Royal Society of Portrait Painters . In 1898 he was a founding member of the Pastel Society . The fact that at the age of 85 he was the only artist to be a member of the Order of Merit founded in 1902 underlines the great importance that was assigned to his life's work. The philanthropist Watts left his legacy to the state; his house in Compton is now a museum.

The British composer Charles Villiers Stanford wrote his Sixth Symphony "In Memoriam GF Watts". The work began in 1905 and premiered on January 18, 1906 in London under Stanford's direction. Although the symphony is not based on a program, the four movements are inspired by works of art by Watts.

gallery

literature

  • Wilfrid Blunt : "England's Michelangelo". A Biography of George Frederic Watts, OM, RA Hamilton, London 1975, ISBN 0-241-89174-4 .
  • Bamber Gascoigne: Encyclopedia of Britain. BCA, London a. a. 1993, ISBN 0-333-54764-0 , p. 681.
  • Meyer's Encyclopedic Lexicon. Volume 25. Bibliographical Institute, Mannheim, Vienna, Zurich 1973, p. 78.
  • George Frederick Watts in: W. Cosmo Monkhouse: British contemporary artists. Publisher: C. Scribner's Sons, New York 1899

Web links

Commons : George Frederic Watts  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Watts, George Frederic
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Watts, George Frederick
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English painter
DATE OF BIRTH February 23, 1817
PLACE OF BIRTH London
DATE OF DEATH June 1, 1904
Place of death Compton (Surrey)