Walter Langley
Walter Langley (* 8. June 1852 in Birmingham , West Midlands , † 21st March 1922 in Penzance , Cornwall ) was an English painter of the late Impressionism and co-founder of the Newlyn School , an artists' colony in the late 19th and early 20th century .
life and work
Langley began his artistic career at the age of 15 when he was apprenticed to a Birmingham lithographer . After graduating at the age of 21, he studied design at Kensington and was awarded a scholarship. Langley then returned to Birmingham to continue working as a lithographer, but already spent his free time studying intensively in painting. Soon after, he gave up lithography in order to devote himself entirely to painting .
Langley 1882 was the first artist of the group, located in Newlyn settled, a fishing village in the southwestern English county of Cornwall . His friend Edwin Harris soon followed suit . At first, Langley benefited little from the artist group's increasing popularity, on the one hand because of his simple origins and his socialist outlook, on the other hand because until 1892 he mostly did not paint with oil paints , but preferred watercolor painting , which was much less respected at the time. Langley mainly did genre painting and painted scenes of daily life in the small fishing village. He also recorded misfortunes and tragedies that occurred more frequently during this time, and showed in his work great empathy for the needs of the residents of Newlyn.
Langley's reputation grew significantly later, so that he became a member of the Royal Society of Arts and the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colors . One of his pictures was published in 1898 by Leo Tolstoy in his book What is Art? mentioned and described there as a beautiful and true work of art. He achieved great success in 1895 when he was asked by the Uffizi Gallery in Florence to contribute a self-portrait to the Medici collection of depictions by famous painters. Today his work is regarded as decisive for the artists' association of the Newlyn School. Alongside that of Stanhope Forbes, his work is considered the most consistent in style and most significant in production.
literature
- Roger Langley: Walter Langley. Pioneer of the Newlyn Art Colony . Sansom, Bristol 1997, ISBN 1-900178-45-1 .
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Langley, Walter |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | English late impressionist painter |
| DATE OF BIRTH | June 8, 1852 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Birmingham , West Midlands |
| DATE OF DEATH | March 21, 1922 |
| Place of death | Penzance , Cornwall |