William Blake Richmond

Venus and Anchises (1889 or 1890) by William Blake Richmond

Sir William Blake Richmond (born November 29, 1842 in London - † February 11, 1921 ) was an English painter .

Life

William Blake Richmond, son of the portrait painter George Richmond (1809-1896), trained from 1857 to 1859 at the Royal London Art Academy and under the influence of the Pre-Raphaelites . He traveled to Italy in 1859 and 1860 , where he studied the works of the old masters. This visit to the Apennine Peninsula had a significant impact on its further development. In 1861 he exhibited portraits of his brothers at the Royal Academy, which was followed by other pictures over the next three years. From 1865 to 1869 he stayed again in Italy, where he lived mostly in Rome . It was then that he met Frederic Leighton and Giovanni Costa , both of whom he greatly admired. During his stay in Italy he also devoted himself to aesthetic and historical studies, learned fresco painting and created, among other things, the figurative painting A Procession in Honor of Bacchus , which he exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1869 after his return to England.

In London, Richmond was now mostly active as a portrait painter and distinguished himself particularly in portraits of children. In 1873 he executed a series of frescoes on Mr. Hodgson's country estate in Hahlemere, depicting the life of women. He also painted large mythological and allegorical paintings in the manner of Leighton, of which the following should be highlighted:

• The Lament of the Leaving Ariadne , 1872
• Bound Prometheus , 1874, gallery in Birmingham
• Sarpedon , slain before Troy , is brought to Lycia through death and sleep , 1877
• Mirjam's Song , 1879
• The Liberation of Prometheus , 1882
• Presentation of Agamemnon in Athens , 1885

The mosaic paintings in the quarter domes of St Paul's Cathedral in London are also Richmond's work. His portraits (Gladstone, Darwin, etc.) were highly valued in England. In Germany he portrayed Prince Bismarck, among others . He also visited Greece and Egypt several times.

As a successor to John Ruskin , Richmond became Slade Professor of Fine Art at Oxford University in 1878 , but resigned from this post after Ruskin's recovery in 1883. He was also active as an art writer and owned the small gold medal of the Berlin art exhibition. In 1888 he was elected Associate of the Royal Academy and in 1897 knighted as Knight Commander of the Order of Bath (KCB). He then became a professor of painting at the Royal Academy. He was the father of the admiral and naval historian Herbert Richmond (1871-1946) and the architect Ernest Richmond (1874-1955) and died on February 11, 1921 at the age of 78.

literature

• Richmond, William Blake . In: Meyers Großes Konversations-Lexikon , 6th edition, 1902-08, Vol. 16, p. 903.
• Richmond, William Blake , in: Encyclopædia Britannica , 11th Edition, 1910-11, Vol. 23, p. 307.

Web links

Commons : William Blake Richmond  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files