John Atkinson Grimshaw (6 September 1836 – 13 October 1893) was an English Victorian-era artist best known for his nocturnal scenes of urban landscapes.Alexander Robertson, ''Atkinson Grimshaw'', London, Phaidon Press, 1996 H. J. Dyos and Michael Wolff, eds., ''The Victorian City: Images and Realities'', 2 Volumes, London, Routledge, 1973. He was called a "remarkable and imaginative painter" by the critic and historian Christopher Wood in ''Victorian Painting'' (1999).Christopher Wood, ''Victorian Painting'', Boston, Little, Brown & Co., 1999; p. 173 Grimshaw's love for realism stemmed from a passion for photography, which would eventually lend itself to the creative process. Though entirely self-taught, he is known to have openly used a

camera obscura A camera obscura (; ) is the natural phenomenon in which the rays of light passing through a aperture, small hole into a dark space form an image where they strike a surface, resulting in an inverted (upside down) and reversed (left to right) ...

or lenses to project scenes onto canvas, which made up for his shortcomings as a draughtsman and his imperfect knowledge of perspective. This technique, which

Caravaggio Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (also Michele Angelo Merigi or Amerighi da Caravaggio; 29 September 1571 – 18 July 1610), known mononymously as Caravaggio, was an Italian painter active in Rome for most of his artistic life. During the fina ...

and

Vermeer Johannes Vermeer ( , ; see below; also known as Jan Vermeer; October 1632 – 15 December 1675) was a Dutch painter who specialized in domestic interior scenes of middle-class life. He is considered one of the greatest painters of the Dutch ...

were suspected to have also used in secret, was condemned by a number of his contemporaries who believed it demonstrated less skill than painting by eye, with some claiming that his paintings appeared to "show no marks of handling or brushwork", while others "were doubtful whether they could be accepted as paintings at all". However, many recognised his mastery of colour, lighting and shadow, as well as his unique ability to provoke strong emotional responses in the viewer.

James McNeill Whistler James Abbott McNeill Whistler (; July 10, 1834July 17, 1903) was an American painter in oils and watercolor, and printmaker, active during the American Gilded Age and based primarily in the United Kingdom. He eschewed sentimentality and moral a ...

, whom Grimshaw worked with in his Chelsea studios, stated, "I considered myself the inventor of nocturnes until I saw Grimmy's moonlit pictures." His early paintings were signed "JAG", "J. A. Grimshaw", or "John Atkinson Grimshaw", though he finally settled on "Atkinson Grimshaw".

Life

He was born on 6 September 1836 in a

back-to-back house Back-to-backs are a form of terraced houses in the United Kingdom, built from the late 18th century through to the early 20th century in various forms. Many thousands of these dwellings were built during the Industrial Revolution for the urbanisat ...

in Park Street,

Leeds Leeds is a city in West Yorkshire, England. It is the largest settlement in Yorkshire and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds Metropolitan Borough, which is the second most populous district in the United Kingdom. It is built aro ...

to Mary and David Grimshaw. In 1856 he married his cousin Frances Hubbard (1835–1917). In 1861, at the age of 24, to the dismay of his parents, he left his job as a clerk for the Great Northern Railway to become a painter. He first exhibited in 1862, mostly paintings of birds, fruit, and blossom, under the patronage of the Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society. He and his wife moved in 1866 to a semi-detached villa, which is now numbered 56 Cliff Road in

Headingley Headingley is a suburb of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, approximately two miles out of the city centre, to the north west along the A660 road. Headingley is the location of the Beckett Park campus of Leeds Beckett University and Headingley ...

and has a

Leeds Civic Trust Leeds Civic Trust is a voluntary organisation and registered charity established in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England in 1965. Affiliated to the national charity Civic Trust (England), Civic Voice, its stated purpose is "to stimulate public interes ...

blue plaque A blue plaque is a permanent sign installed in a public place in the United Kingdom, and certain other countries and territories, to commemorate a link between that location and a famous person, event, or former building on the site, serving a ...

, and in 1870 to Knostrop Old Hall.

Grid Reference A projected coordinate systemalso called a projected coordinate reference system, planar coordinate system, or grid reference systemis a type of spatial reference system that represents locations on Earth using Cartesian coordinate system, Car ...

: SE 32125 32100. He became successful in the 1870s and rented a second home, Castle-by-the-Sea in

Scarborough Scarborough or Scarboro may refer to: People * Scarborough (surname) * Earl of Scarbrough Places Australia * Scarborough, Western Australia, suburb of Perth * Scarborough, New South Wales, suburb of Wollongong * Scarborough, Queensland, sub ...

. Scarborough became a favourite subject. He, and his son Arthur, were elected members of the Leeds Photographic Society at its meeting on 14 December 1890. He died on 31 October 1893 and is buried in

Woodhouse Cemetery The Leeds General Cemetery (also known as Woodhouse Cemetery, Woodhouse Lane Cemetery and, since its closure in 1969, St George's Fields) is a former cemetery in Woodhouse, Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It is now within the campus of the Un ...

, now called St George's Field, in Leeds and part of the

University of Leeds The University of Leeds is a public research university in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It was established in 1874 as the Yorkshire College of Science. In 1884, it merged with the Leeds School of Medicine (established 1831) and was renamed Y ...

campus. Cause of death is listed as 'abscess'. Four of his children, Arthur E. Grimshaw (1864–1913), Louis H. Grimshaw (1870–1944), Wilfred Grimshaw (1871–1937), and Elaine Grimshaw (1877–1970) also became painters.

Work

Grimshaw's primary influence was the

Pre-Raphaelites The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (PRB), later known as the Pre-Raphaelites, was a group of English painters, poets, and art critics, founded in 1848 by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Michael Rossetti ...

. True to the Pre-Raphaelite style, he created landscapes of accurate colour and lighting, vivid detail and realism, often typifying seasons or a type of weather. Moonlit views of city and suburban streets and of the docks in London, Hull, Liverpool, and Glasgow also figured largely in his art. His careful painting and his skill in lighting effects meant that he captured both the appearance and the mood of a scene in minute detail. His "paintings of dampened gas-lit streets and misty waterfronts conveyed an eerie warmth as well as alienation in the urban scene." ''Dulce Domum'' (1885), on whose reverse Grimshaw wrote, "mostly painted under great difficulties", captures the music portrayed in the piano-player, entices the eye to meander through the richly decorated room, and to consider the still and silent young lady who is listening. Grimshaw painted more interior scenes, especially in the 1870s, when he worked under the influence of

James Tissot Jacques Joseph Tissot (; 15 October 1836 – 8 August 1902), better known as James Tissot ( , ), was a French painter, illustrator, and caricaturist. He was born to a drapery merchant and a milliner and decided to pursue a career in art at a y ...

and the

Aesthetic Movement Aestheticism (also known as the aesthetic movement) was an art movement in the late 19th century that valued the appearance of literature, music, fonts and the arts over their functions. According to Aestheticism, art should be produced to b ...

. ''On Hampstead Hill'' is considered one of Grimshaw's finest works, exemplifying his skill with a variety of light sources, in capturing the mood of the passing of twilight into night. In his later career his urban scenes under twilight or yellow streetlighting were popular with his middle-class patrons. His later work included imagined scenes from the Greek and Roman empires, and he painted literary subjects from Longfellow and

Tennyson Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson (; 6 August 1809 – 6 October 1892) was an English poet. He was the Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom, Poet Laureate during much of Queen Victoria's reign. In 1829, Tennyson was awarded the Chancellor's ...

— pictures including ''Elaine'' and ''The Lady of Shalott''. Grimshaw named his children after characters in Tennyson's poems. In the 1880s, Grimshaw maintained a London studio in Chelsea, not far from the studio of

James Abbott McNeill Whistler James Abbott McNeill Whistler (; July 10, 1834July 17, 1903) was an American painter in oils and watercolor, and printmaker, active during the American Gilded Age and based primarily in the United Kingdom. He eschewed sentimentality and moral a ...

. After visiting Grimshaw, Whistler remarked that "I considered myself the inventor of Nocturnes until I saw Grimmy's moonlit pictures."Lionel Lambourne, ''Victorian Painting'', London, Phaidon Press, 1999; p. 112. Unlike Whistler's

Impressionistic Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by visible brush strokes, open Composition (visual arts), composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage ...

night scenes, Grimshaw worked in a realistic vein: "sharply focused, almost photographic", his pictures innovated in applying the tradition of rural moonlight images to the Victorian city, recording "the rain and mist, the puddles and smoky fog of late Victorian industrial England with great poetry." Grimshaw's paintings depicted the contemporary world but eschewed the dirty and depressing aspects of industrial towns. ''Shipping on the Clyde'', a depiction of Glasgow's Victorian docks, is a lyrically beautiful evocation of the industrial era. Grimshaw transcribed the fog and mist so accurately as to capture the chill in the damp air, and the moisture penetrating the heavy clothes of the few figures awake in the misty early morning.

Reputation and legacy

Grimshaw left behind no letters, journals, or papers. His reputation rested on, and his legacy is based on, his townscapes. There was a revival of interest in Grimshaw's work in the second half of the 20th century, with several important exhibitions devoted to it. A

retrospective A retrospective (from Latin ', "look back"), generally, is a look back at events that took place, or works that were produced, in the past. As a noun, ''retrospective'' has specific meanings in software development, popular culture, and the arts. ...

exhibition "Atkinson Grimshaw – Painter of Moonlight" ran from 16 April – 4 September 2011 at the Mercer Art Gallery in

Harrogate Harrogate ( ) is a spa town and civil parish in the North Yorkshire District, district and North Yorkshire, county of North Yorkshire, England. Historic counties of England, Historically in the West Riding of Yorkshire, the town is a tourist de ...

and subsequently in the

Guildhall Art Gallery The Guildhall Art Gallery houses the art collection of the City of London, England. The museum is located in the Moorgate area of the City of London. It is a stone building in a semi-Gothic style intended to be sympathetic to the historic Guil ...

, London.

Gallery

File:(john atkinson grimshaw woodland near leeds 093526).jpg, ''Woodland near Leeds'', 1869. File:Grimshaw John Atkinson Whitby Docks.jpg, ''Whitby Docks'', 1876. File:John Atkinson Grimshaw, At The Park Gate, 1878.jpg, ''At The Park Gate'', 1878. File:John Atkinson Grimshaw - Spirit of the Night.jpg, ''Spirit of the Night'', 1879. File:Reflections on the Thames, Westminster - Grimshaw, John Atkinson.jpg, ''Reflections on the Thames'', 1880. File:Grimshaw-NightfallThames.jpg, ''Nightfall on the Thames'', 1880. File:John Atkinson Grimshaw - Shipping on the Clyde (1881).jpg, ''Shipping on the Clyde'', 1881. File:John Atkinson Grimshaw - Boar Lane, Leeds.jpg, ''Boar Lane'', 1881. File:Grimshaw - Late October.jpg, ''Late October'', 1882. File:John Atkinson Grimshaw11.jpg, ''Iris'', 1886. File:John Atkinson Grimshaw - Canny Glasgow.jpg, ''Canny Glasgow'', 1887. File:John atkinson grimshaw stapleton park near pontefract102356).jpg, ''Stapleton Park'' Stapleton Yorkshire, 1877.

References

External links