Frederick Daniel Hardy
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Frederick Daniel Hardy (13 February 1827 – 1 April 1911) was an English
genre Genre () is any style or form of communication in any mode (written, spoken, digital, artistic, etc.) with socially agreed-upon conventions developed over time. In popular usage, it normally describes a category of literature, music, or other fo ...
painter and member of the Cranbrook Colony of artists.


Early life

Frederick Daniel Hardy was born at Windsor in
Berkshire Berkshire ( ; abbreviated ), officially the Royal County of Berkshire, is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Oxfordshire to the north, Buckinghamshire to the north-east, Greater London ...
, the third of eight children of George Hardy (1795–1877) and his wife Sarah (1803–1872). George Hardy was a horn player in the Private Band of Music of the Royal Households of
George IV George IV (George Augustus Frederick; 12 August 1762 – 26 June 1830) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and King of Hanover from 29 January 1820 until his death in 1830. At the time of his accession to the throne, h ...
, Queen Adelaide and
Queen Victoria Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until Death and state funeral of Queen Victoria, her death in January 1901. Her reign of 63 year ...
. Frederick's father was also an amateur artist, taught by
James Duffield Harding James Duffield Harding (1798 – 4 December 1863) was a British Landscape art, landscape painter, lithographer and author of drawing manuals. His use of tinted papers and opaque paints in watercolour proved influential. Life Harding was born at ...
and Edmund Bristow. F. D. Hardy's ancestors were from
Horsforth Horsforth is a town and civil parishes in England, civil parish in the City of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, five miles north-west of Leeds city centre. Historically a village within the West Riding of Yorkshire, it had a population of 18,895 ...
in Yorkshire; Gathorne Gathorne-Hardy, First Earl of Cranbrook, was his second cousin. Frederick enrolled at the
Royal Academy of Music The Royal Academy of Music (RAM) in London, England, is one of the oldest music schools in the UK, founded in 1822 by John Fane and Nicolas-Charles Bochsa. It received its royal charter in 1830 from King George IV with the support of the firs ...
, Hanover Square, at the age of seventeen. He studied for about three years, but finally abandoned music to become an artist like his elder brother George Hardy (1822–1909).


The 1850s: early paintings of cottage interiors

Hardy soon became a skilful painter of cottage interiors, but was continually improving his figure painting throughout the 1850s. Christopher Wood, writer on Victorian Art, commented on one of Hardy's earliest paintings, ''Cottage Fireside'' (1850): “Some of his early works of this kind are beautifully observed, and quite unsentimental, omitting the usual children, pets and other familiar props of the cottage idyll painters. The old kitchen... is delineated as dispassionately as a Dutch seventeenth century kitchen by Ostade or Brekelenkamp.” In 1851 Hardy had his first two pictures accepted for exhibition at the
Royal Academy The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House in Piccadilly London, England. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its ...
. On 11 March 1852 he married Rebecca Sophia Dorofield (1827–1906). They lived at Snell's Wood, near
Amersham Amersham ( ) is a market town and civil parish in Buckinghamshire, England, in the Chiltern Hills, northwest of central London, south-east of Aylesbury and north-east of High Wycombe. Amersham is part of the London commuter belt. There ar ...
in
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, three miles from the farm of Rebecca's parents. Their first child was born there in March 1853. By July 1853 they had moved to 2 Waterloo Place at
Cranbrook, Kent Cranbrook is a town in the civil parish of Cranbrook and Sissinghurst, in the Weald of Kent in South East England. It lies roughly half-way between Maidstone and Hastings, about southeast of central London. The smaller settlements of Sissin ...
, a house that Hardy kept all his life. Hardy's painting in the 1850s was influenced by the works of 17th Dutch artists, such as
Pieter de Hooch Pieter Hendricksz. de Hooch (; also spelled ''Hoogh'' or ''Hooghe''; 20 December 1629  – after 1683), was a Dutch Golden Age painter famous for his genre works of quiet domestic scenes with an open doorway. He was a contemporary, in the ...
and
Nicolaes Maes Nicolaes Maes (January 1634December 1693 (buried 24 December 1693)) was a Dutch Republic, Dutch painter known for his Genre painting, genre scenes, Portrait painting, portraits, religious compositions and the occasional still life. A pupil of Re ...
, and by the paintings of his friend Thomas Webster. He also kept a photograph album and used photographs when painting some of his pictures. Throughout the decade Hardy gradually included a few figures into his pictures of interiors. And in 1859 he painted his first picture, ''The Foreign Guest'', that has a narrative involving a larger group of people, and is similar to much of his best work in the 1860s. File:Cottage Fireside. Frederick Daniel Hardy, 1850.jpg, ''Cottage Fireside'' (1850) File:The Clergyman's visit. Frederick Daniel Hardy, ca. 1854.jpg, ''The Clergyman's Visit'' (ca. 1854) File:The Foreign Guest. Frederick Daniel Hardy, 1859.jpg, ''The Foreign Guest'' (1859)


The 1860s and beyond

During the 1860s Hardy painted the pictures for which he is best known, particularly paintings of children's activities such as ''The Volunteers'' (1860), ''Early Sorrow'' (1861), ''The Sweep'' (1862), ''The Young Photographers'' (1862), ''The Doctor'' (1863), ''The Leaky Roof'' (1865), ''The Dismayed Artist'' (1866) and ''Baby’s Birthday'' (1867). Hardy painted at least ten versions of ''The Sweep'', one of his most popular paintings. Some of his paintings from the 1870s were more critical of Victorian society. ''Looking for Father'' (1873) portrays a barefoot girl looking through the glass panel of an alehouse door for her father. ''After the Party'' (1875) depicts an exhausted servant who has fallen asleep, sitting on a chair, after serving at a party. And ''The Wedding Dress'' (1875) portrays a group of seamstresses who have had to work through the night to finish their work. Hardy exhibited ninety-three pictures at the Royal Academy from 1851 to 1898. The sale prices of his paintings were at their peak in the 1870s; in 1877 A ''Quartette Party'' (1872) and A ''Wedding Breakfast'' (1871) were each sold for £798 at
Christie's Christie's is a British auction house founded in 1766 by James Christie (auctioneer), James Christie. Its main premises are on King Street, St James's in London, and it has additional salerooms in New York, Paris, Hong Kong, Milan, Geneva, Shan ...
. From the mid-1870s the Hardys maintained a house in London, at 17 Brunswick Gardens in
Kensington Kensington is an area of London in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, around west of Central London. The district's commercial heart is Kensington High Street, running on an east–west axis. The north-east is taken up by Kensingt ...
, as well as their house in Cranbrook. F.D. Hardy's work is to be found in numerous public collections, notably at the
Wolverhampton Art Gallery Wolverhampton Art Gallery is located in Wolverhampton, England. The building was funded and constructed by local contractor Philip Horsman (1825–1890), and built on land provided by the municipal authority. It opened in May 1884. The buildi ...
which holds nineteen of his paintings.


Life in Cranbrook. Family

About four years after Hardy settled in Cranbrook his friend Thomas Webster, who was related to Hardy's mother, came to live there. For their studios, Hardy and Webster rented a sixteenth century house in the High Street; Hardy's studio was the front room on the ground floor and Webster's studio was the front room above. Several more artists, friends of Webster and Hardy, and Frederick's elder brother George, came to live in Cranbrook or were frequent visitors from London; they became known as the Cranbrook Colony. The Cranbrook artists and their families often met for dinners, teas and parties. Hardy was involved in many activities in Cranbrook: he was an officer in the 37th Kent Rifle Volunteer Corps, a Churchwarden, a Committee member of the Literary Association, a Member of the Cricket Club and a participant at musical evenings in the town. Frederick and Rebecca Hardy had four sons and a daughter. Their eldest son Frederick (1853-1937), attended the Royal Academy Schools and became an artist, using the name “Dorofield Hardy”. Their fourth son, Edwin George (1859-1896), became an architect after studying at the Royal Academy Schools where he won a gold medal for design in architecture and a travelling scholarship for studies in Italy. Frederick's father, George Hardy, came to live with him in 1873. George Hardy died at Cranbrook in 1877. Frederick Daniel Hardy died at Cranbrook in April 1911 and was buried beside his wife in St Dunstan's churchyard. After Hardy's death, his daughter Amelia Gertrude Hardy (1865-1952), an amateur artist, lived in Hardy's former studio in the High Street.Hardy (2016). p. 63.


References


External links

* (works by F.D. Hardy in public British collections)
F D Hardy
(Art Renewal Center) {{DEFAULTSORT:Hardy, Frederick Daniel 1827 births 1911 deaths 19th-century English painters English male painters 20th-century English painters English genre painters Burials in Kent 20th-century English male artists 19th-century English male artists Artists' Rifles soldiers Hardy family