Stephen Elmer (baptised 1715 – 1796) was an English painter.

Biography

Elmer resided at

Farnham, Surrey Farnham (Help:IPA/English, /ˈfɑːnəm/) is a market town and civil parish in Surrey, England, around southwest of London. It is in the Borough of Waverley, close to the administrative counties of England, county border with Hampshire. The ...

, where he was a

maltster Malting is the process of steeping, germinating and drying grain to convert it into malt. The malt is mainly used for brewing or whisky making, but can also be used to make malt vinegar or malt extract. Various grains are used for malting, most ...

. He turned his hand to painting, and developed a special skill for depicting

still life A still life (plural: still lifes) is a work of art depicting mostly wikt:inanimate, inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which are either natural (food, flowers, dead animals, plants, rocks, shells, etc.) or artificiality, m ...

and dead game. He was a member of the Society of Artists in 1763, and exhibited numerous pictures up to 1772, when he first began to exhibit 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 purp ...

. He was elected an Associate of the Academy later that year. From that time to 1795, the year before his death, he contributed a great number of pictures, which were very popular, and were painted in a bold, free manner, and with great truth to nature. He did not confine himself entirely to still life, occasionally painting genre pictures, such as "The Miser" (engraved by B. Granger), "The Politician" (engraved by T. Ryder), scripture pieces, such as "The Last Supper", formerly over the altar, but now in the

vestry A vestry was a committee for the local secular and ecclesiastical government for a parish in England, Wales and some English colonies which originally met in the vestry or sacristy of the parish church, and consequently became known colloquial ...

of Farnham Church, and portraits. Some of his still-life pictures were engraved by J. Scott, J. F. Miller, C. Turner, and others. Elmer died and was buried at Farnham in 1790. He does not appear to have been married, but left his property, including a large collection of his own paintings, to his nephew. The latter were collected, and exhibited at the great room in the Haymarket in the spring of 1799, under the title of "Elmer's Sportsman's Exhibition". Some of these were disposed of for good prices, and the remainder were removed to Gerrard Street,

Soho Soho is an area of the City of Westminster, part of the West End of London. Originally a fashionable district for the aristocracy, it has been one of the main entertainment districts in the capital since the 19th century. The area was develo ...

, where they were accidentally destroyed by fire on 6 February 1801. His nephew, William Elmer, was a painter of the same class of subject. He practised in Ireland, and occasionally exhibited at the Royal Academy between 1783 and 1799. There is a small

mezzotint Mezzotint is a monochrome printmaking process of the '' intaglio'' family. It was the first printing process that yielded half-tones without using line- or dot-based techniques like hatching, cross-hatching or stipple. Mezzotint achieves tona ...

portrait of him as a schoolboy, dated 26 June 1772, and engraved by

Butler Clowes Butler Clowes (died c.1788) was an English mezzotint-engraver and printseller. Life Clowes lived in Gutter Lane, Cheapside, London where he kept a print-shop, and his address appeared on engravings by James Watson and others. Works Clowes made ...

References

External links

*
Arcadja: Works by Stephen Elmer

{{DEFAULTSORT:Elmer, Stephen 18th-century births 1796 deaths People from Farnham 19th-century English painters English male painters Associates of the Royal Academy 19th-century English male artists