John Everett
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Herbert Barnard John Everett (18 August 1876 – 22 February 1949), was an English painter.


Biography

Known as Herbert by his family, he was born in
Dorchester, Dorset Dorchester ( ) is the county town of Dorset, England. It is situated between Poole and Bridport on the A35 trunk route. A historic market town, Dorchester is on the banks of the River Frome, Dorset, River Frome to the south of the Dorset Dow ...
.John Everett landscapes
on Dorset life website, by Gwen Yarker
on 18 August 1876. He chose to be called John from 1901. His father Rev. Henry Everett was Rector of Holy Trinity in Dorchester and his mother, Augusta Stewart (also known as Aurelia) could trace her maternal ancestry back to Viscount Sackville, third son of the Duke of Dorset and her paternal to the 7th Earl of Galloway and the 7th Earl of Wemyss. Herbert was their only son. In the 1880s his parents had contacts with
Thomas Thomas may refer to: People * List of people with given name Thomas * Thomas (name) * Thomas (surname) * Saint Thomas (disambiguation) * Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, and Doctor of the Church * Thomas the A ...
and
Emma Hardy Emma Ann Hardy (born 17 July 1979) is a British Labour Party politician who has served as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Water and Flooding since July 2024. She was previously the Member of Parliament (MP) for Kingston upon Hul ...
who spent time there before moving to
Max Gate Max Gate is the former home of Thomas Hardy and is located on the outskirts of Dorchester, Dorset, England. It was designed and built by Thomas Hardy for his own use in 1885 and he lived there until his death in 1928. In 1940 it was bequeathed ...
. In the autumn of 1896 after his father died, Everett went to
London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...
to enroll at the
Slade School of Fine Art The UCL Slade School of Fine Art (informally The Slade) is the art school of University College London (UCL) and is based in London, England. It has been ranked as the UK's top art and design educational institution. The school is organised as ...
. After studying briefly at the
Académie Julian The () was a private art school for painting and sculpture founded in Paris, France, in 1867 by French painter and teacher Rodolphe Julian (1839–1907). The school was active from 1868 through 1968. It remained famous for the number and qual ...
in Paris, Everett's life took an unconventional path when he embarked on the first of his 16 sea voyages. He signed on in the London docks, as a working member of the crew of the sailing ship ''Iquique'' in 1898, travelling to
Sydney Sydney is the capital city of the States and territories of Australia, state of New South Wales and the List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city in Australia. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Syd ...
and returning in 1899. Back in London in 1899, Everett returned to the Slade, working and socializing with his fellow students who formed part of London's café society. They all went on painting excursions to Cornwall and France, and these trips had a profound effect on their work. In 1901 he married his Irish cousin and fellow Slade student, Kathleen Olive Herbert (known as Katherine). After their marriage, he and his wife Katherine initially lived in Fitzroy Street, London, and went on honeymoon at sea, arranging passage to Australia on a 700-ton barque. The trip took 117 days and was intended as an opportunity for John Everett to paint, but according to his wife's autobiography it was "...the one thing he had not done and never did on that voyage." Around 1904 the Herberts moved to
Wool Wool is the textile fiber obtained from sheep and other mammals, especially goats, rabbits, and camelids. The term may also refer to inorganic materials, such as mineral wool and glass wool, that have some properties similar to animal w ...
in Dorset, renting the Woolbridge Manor House that belonged to a Mrs. Drax and had been the home of the Turbervilles. Because of this, they were visited by Thomas Hardy and Katherine, herself also an artist, copied the frescos from the Manor House's walls which were reproduced in his novel. It was at Wool that the Everetts' first son Henry was born in 1904. He was an ill child who initially failed to thrive, and Katherine was left to look after him on her own. Herbert eventually returned and the couple moved to Paris and then
Swanage Swanage () is a coastal town and civil parish in the south east of Dorset, England. It is at the eastern end of the Isle of Purbeck and one of its two towns, approximately south of Poole and east of Dorchester, Dorset, Dorchester. In the Unit ...
where their second child Anthony Blaze was born in 1906. Some time in 1906/7 the couple moved to
Corfe Castle Corfe Castle is a fortification standing above the Corfe Castle (village), village of the same name on the Isle of Purbeck peninsula in the English county of Dorset. Built by William the Conqueror, the castle dates to the 11th century and ...
, where they rented a mill house called Arfleet. Katherine and her son Anthony can be seen in the garden of Arfleet in
Henry Tonks Henry Tonks, Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, FRCS (9 April 1862 – 8 January 1937) was a British surgeon and later draughtsman and painter of figure subjects, chiefly interiors, and a Caricature, caricaturist. He became an influentia ...
' 1908 painting ''Summer''. In her autobiography Katherine mentions the execution of this painting, and how neither she or the artist considered it a success, but rather "a confused failure". The Everetts spent several years at Arfleet, but had to move when claypit excavations nearby threatened to undermine the house. They bought land at Broadstone and designed and built their own home, called Prospect. However, by 1914 their marriage had ended. In Katherine's own words "In the past, if things had been uncomfortable, as for instance directly after my babies were born, Herbert went away, perhaps to Paris or Cornwall or I might not know where he was. This time he informed me that his disappearance was to be final". After this point, John Everett made no effort to see or pay for the education of his children, and his wife Katherine looked after them exclusively. During the First World War, wartime security regulations restricted Everett from sketching outdoors, however in the spring of 1918, the Ministry of Information asked him to depict London river scenes. Consequently, he received a permit to draw, and in the summer spent every day at the docks. In 1918 he joined the Merchant Navy as a Seaman; his rank was Fourth Officer. On 22 April 1920, he joined the barque '' Birkdale'' (1892) as
third mate A third mate (3/M) or third officer is a licensed member of the deck department of a merchant ship. The third mate is a watchstander and customarily the ship's safety officer and fourth-in-command (fifth on some ocean liners). The position i ...
, sailing out of
Bristol Bristol () is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, the most populous city in the region. Built around the River Avon, Bristol, River Avon, it is bordered by t ...
for
Sabine The Sabines (, , , ;  ) were an Italic people who lived in the central Apennine Mountains (see Sabina) of the ancient Italian Peninsula, also inhabiting Latium north of the Anio before the founding of Rome. The Sabines divided int ...
, Texas. This voyage between April and June 1920, resulted in many drawings and paintings. At voyage end he returned home by steamer. His landscape work of his native Dorset became widely known after the rediscovery in 2011 of a set of small oil sketches made on Everett's last visit to Dorset in May 1924. The work was rediscovered through the
BBC television BBC Television is a service of the BBC. The corporation has operated a Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast television service in the United Kingdom, under the terms of a royal charter, since 1 January 1927. It p ...
programme ''BBC TV Hidden Paintings of the South'' at Dorset County Museum, where they had been lying on a shelf ignored for 30 years. The BBC had unearthed Everett's will where he had left the work to Dorset and a search ensued. Everett had met American writer Ernest Brennecke Jr. and had agreed to collaborate on a project, travelling around the county making illustrations of places featured in the works of the writer
Thomas Hardy Thomas Hardy (2 June 1840 – 11 January 1928) was an English novelist and poet. A Literary realism, Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, including the poetry ...
. for a book Brennecke was writing. Six of the pieces were published in the book in America in 1925, however this book (''The Life of Thomas Hardy'') was to be banned in Britain through intervention by Hardy himself, who felt it was too inaccurate, and infringed copyright. Hardy also took exception to Brenneke's book ''Thomas Hardy's universe: a study of a poet's mind'', published by Small, Maynard and Company in 1924; which had no illustrations. The artwork sent to New York went missing, however Everett would recover it some years later. Meanwhile, in 1925, Everett exhibited Hardy Country aquatints at the Camera Club near the
Adelphi, London Adelphi (; from the Greek ἀδελφοί ''adelphoi'', meaning "brothers") is a district of the City of Westminster in Greater London.Mills, A., ''Oxford Dictionary of London Place Names'', (2001) The small district includes the streets of '' ...
. 1938 marked his last voyage and World War II put an end to his travels, he was to paint and make prints from memory and notes from that point on. Everett died in London on 22 February 1949. In 2017 it was found that there are more paintings by John Everett in UK public art collections than any other artist.


References


Further reading

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External links

*
John Everett
on
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Everett, John 1876 births 1949 deaths 19th-century English painters 20th-century English painters Alumni of the Slade School of Fine Art English male painters People from Dorchester, Dorset Artists from Dorset 20th-century English male artists 19th-century English male artists British Merchant Service personnel of World War I