Louise Ingram Rayner (21 June 1832 – 8 October 1924) was a British

watercolour Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (British English; see spelling differences), also ''aquarelle'' (; from Italian diminutive of Latin ''aqua'' "water"), is a painting method”Watercolor may be as old as art itself, going back to ...

artist An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse refers to a practitioner in the visual arts only. However, th ...

Family

Rayner was born in

Matlock Bath Matlock Bath is a village and civil parish in Derbyshire, England. It lies in the Peak District, south of Matlock on the main A6 road, and approximately halfway between Buxton and Derby. The population of the civil parish at the 2011 census wa ...

Derbyshire Derbyshire ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands, England. It includes much of the Peak District National Park, the southern end of the Pennine range of hills and part of the National Forest. It borders Greater Manchester to the nor ...

.Simon Fenwick, ‘Rayner, Samuel (1806–1879)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 200
accessed 14 Feb 2011
/ref> Her parents

Samuel Rayner Samuel A. Rayner (15 April 1806 – 1879) was an English Landscape painting, landscape artist, known for his paintings of buildings and their interiors, including abbeys, churches and old mansions. He achieved the distinction of having a wor ...

and Ann Rayner (née Manser) were both noted artists, Samuel having been accepted for exhibition at the

Royal Academy The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its pur ...

when he was 15. Four of Louise's sisters—Ann ("Nancy"), Margaret, Rose and Frances—and her brother

Richard Richard is a male given name. It originates, via Old French, from Old Frankish and is a compound of the words descending from Proto-Germanic ''*rīk-'' 'ruler, leader, king' and ''*hardu-'' 'strong, brave, hardy', and it therefore means 'stro ...

were also artists. Her eldest sister Ann Ingram Rayner (Nancy) exhibited at the Society of Painters in Water Colours and three times at the

. The family lived in Matlock Bath and

Derby Derby ( ) is a city and unitary authority area in Derbyshire, England. It lies on the banks of the River Derwent in the south of Derbyshire, which is in the East Midlands Region. It was traditionally the county town of Derbyshire. Derby g ...

until 1842 when they moved to London.

Education

Rayner studied painting from the age of fifteen, at first with her father and later with established artist friends of the family such as

George Cattermole George Cattermole (10 August 180024 July 1868) was a British painter and illustrator, chiefly in watercolours. He was a friend of Charles Dickens and many other literary and artistic figures. Life and work He was born at Dickleburgh, near ...

, Edmund Niemann, David Roberts and Frank Stone. Her first exhibited work, an oil painting entitled ''The Interior of Haddon Chapel'', was shown at the Royal Academy in 1852, the first of a series of

oils An oil is any nonpolar chemical substance that is composed primarily of hydrocarbons and is hydrophobic (does not mix with water) & lipophilic (mixes with other oils). Oils are usually flammable and surface active. Most oils are unsaturate ...

Watercolour

From 1860, however, her medium was watercolour, which she exhibited for over 50 years through organisations including the

Society of Lady Artists The Society of Women Artists (SWA) is a British art body dedicated to celebrating and promoting fine art created by women. It was founded as the Society of Female Artists (SFA) in about 1855, offering women artists the opportunity to exhibit and ...

, The Royal Academy,

Royal Watercolour Society The Royal Watercolour Society is a British institution of painters working in watercolours. The Society is a centre of excellence for water-based media on paper, which allows for a diverse and interesting range of approaches to the medium of wa ...

and the

Royal Society of British Artists The Royal Society of British Artists (RBA) is a British art body established in 1823 as the Society of British Artists, as an alternative to the Royal Academy. History The RBA commenced with twenty-seven members, and took until 1876 to reach fif ...

Chester

She lived in

Chester Chester is a cathedral city and the county town of Cheshire, England. It is located on the River Dee, close to the English–Welsh border. With a population of 79,645 in 2011,"2011 Census results: People and Population Profile: Chester Loca ...

in the county of

Cheshire Cheshire ( ) is a ceremonial and historic county in North West England, bordered by Wales to the west, Merseyside and Greater Manchester to the north, Derbyshire to the east, and Staffordshire and Shropshire to the south. Cheshire's county tow ...

but travelled extensively, painting British scenes, during the summers in the 1870s and 1880s. Her paintings are very detailed and highly

picturesque Picturesque is an aesthetic ideal introduced into English cultural debate in 1782 by William Gilpin in ''Observations on the River Wye, and Several Parts of South Wales, etc. Relative Chiefly to Picturesque Beauty; made in the Summer of the Year ...

populated street scenes capturing the "olde worlde" character of British towns and cities in the booming Victorian period. Her paintings are very popular today as prints and on

jigsaw puzzle A jigsaw puzzle is a tiling puzzle that requires the assembly of often irregularly shaped interlocking and mosaiced pieces, each of which typically has a portion of a picture. When assembled, the puzzle pieces produce a complete picture. In t ...

s. Around 1910 she moved with her sister to

Tunbridge Wells Royal Tunbridge Wells is a town in Kent, England, southeast of central London. It lies close to the border with East Sussex on the northern edge of the High Weald, whose sandstone geology is exemplified by the rock formation High Rocks. T ...

, and later to St Leonards, where she died on 8 October 1924, aged 92.

Collections

Rayner's work is represented in the collections of at the

Russell-Cotes Art Gallery & Museum The Russell-Cotes Museum (formally, the Russell-Cotes Art Gallery & Museum) is an art gallery and museum in Bournemouth, England. A Grade II* listed building originally known as East Cliff Hall, it is located on the top of the East Cliff, next ...

Bournemouth Bournemouth () is a coastal resort town in the Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole council area of Dorset, England. At the 2011 census, the town had a population of 183,491, making it the largest town in Dorset. It is situated on the English ...

Derby Museum and Art Gallery Derby Museum and Art Gallery is a museum and art gallery in Derby, England. It was established in 1879, along with Derby Central Library, in a new building designed by Richard Knill Freeman and given to Derby by Michael Thomas Bass. The colle ...

and the Grosvenor Museum,

, which possesses 23 of her watercolours, the largest in any public collection.

References

Sources

*Simon Fenwick, "Rayner, Samuel (1806–1879)", ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 200
accessed 26 June 2007Louise Rayner
Chester City Council

External links

DudleyMall page featuring many works
Louise Rayner Artist
Information site by relative {{DEFAULTSORT:Rayner, Louise 1832 births 1924 deaths 19th-century English painters 20th-century English painters 19th-century English women artists 20th-century English women artists English women painters English watercolourists People from Derbyshire Women watercolorists