London.- The Richard Green Gallery on Bond Street is proud to present “John Atkinson Grimshaw”, on view at the gallery through October 23rd. The exhibition devoted to the Victorian artist John Atkinson Grimshaw (1836 – 1893) is the autumn highlight at Richard Green’s flagship Mayfair gallery. Grimshaw began his career painting in the style of the Pre-Raphaelites but his mature works are more romantic conjuring up leafy lanes of suburban Leeds and the shadowy dockyards of Liverpool and London. Famous for his moonlight scenes, it was of these that James Abbott McNeill Whistler is reputed to have said: “I thought I had invented the Nocturne, until I saw Grimmy’s moonlights.”
Grimshaw was a self-taught artist who worked in the North of England in the second half of the nineteenth century. He defied his strictly religious parents and left a good job with the railway to become an artist, and rapidly made a name for himself as a painter; first of all for Pre-Raphaelite style landscapes, and then for his interpretation of the Victorian city and the new urban experience of its inhabitants. Grimshaw enjoyed considerable success in his career, and took his brood of children to live in some splendour at Knostrop Hall, a large old rented house in Leeds, with a spell of several years spent in similar style living in Scarborough. He worked prolifically and gathered to him a group of dedicated patrons and collectors. Grimshaw was constantly on the lookout to find ways of making money in order to support his large family. He was not afraid to experiment, making theatrical fairy paintings and allegorical portraits of fashionable women, who could as easily have stepped out of a painting by the French artist, James Tissot. In his early career in the 1860s, Grimshaw’s principal subject matter was the landscape, which he homed in on with a Pre-Raphaelite eye for detail. The Lake District was a favourite early source of inspiration, producing such early masterpieces as “Blea Tarn, First Light”, 1865, and The “Bowder Stone, Borrowdale”, c.1865. Yorkshire, in particular the beauties of Wharfedale, was omnipresent in his work, from classically picturesque subjects such as Bolton Abbey, to the public parks and woods around the city of Leeds.
One of the most compelling aspects of Grimshaw’s painting is his ability to evoke a particular atmosphere, often of melancholy. He painted many pictures where the main subject is an old building surrounded by trees. There is not a figure in sight, yet there is a palpable presence in the painting. “Autumn Glory: the Old Mill Cheshire”, 1869, is one of these paintings, and one of Grimshaw’s best known masterpieces. The old mill in the painting has since been identified as a specific location, but in many cases Grimshaw’s settings are inventions. For the greater part of his career, from the 1870s until the end of his life, Atkinson Grimshaw explored the effects of mist and moonlight and the dying light of an autumn afternoon. The Mercer Art Gallery’s “Silver Moonlight”, 1880, is a classic of its kind: the solitary figure of a girl walks in the moonlight down a wide, walled, lane towards an imposing looking house, a few windows glowing orange in contrast to the overall grey/green tone of the painting.
Grimshaw’s work stands out among that of his contemporaries for his preoccupation with the new urban life. Not just the darkened drama of industrial smoke, steam and city clutter, as in “Leeds Bridge”, 1880, but also with the suburban street, as in “October Gold”, 1893, and of course with the city itself. True drama comes to the foreground in Grimshaw’s paintings of the sea, most famously in his beloved Scarborough and Whitby. “In Peril”, 1879, depicts the anguish of windswept figures on the harbour front as they burn a beacon to guide the crew of a boat battered by a storm out in the bay. In “Sic Transit Gloria Mundi”, 1876, the Spa Saloon is burnt to the ground by man-made disaster. In the 1870s and 1880s, Atkinson Grimshaw introduced female figures into his paintings, sometimes suggesting an historical period, as in “Ye Ladye Bountifulle”, 1884, but more often attempting different depictions of the ‘modern woman’. These works, such as “Autumn Regrets”, 1882, are very much influenced by the work of the fashionable French exile artist, Jean Jacques Tissot. “The Chorale”, 1878, explores the subject of the pretty woman in an aesthetically appropriate interior. At the end of his life, Grimshaw was more preoccupied than ever with questions of colour, tone and light. He produced a series of tiny, subtly toned oil paintings that captured the extraordinary light of sun, snow and mist on the beach, a series of small symphonies in green and grey that link him forever with his close contemporary, James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834-1903). Grimshaw died of liver disease at the age of 57. He may be regarded as self-taught in all that gave character and distinction to his art. His methods, treatment and colouring were quite unlike anything in ordinary practice. Originality stamped his work from the first, and some of the effects which, early in his career, were successfully attempted, excited considerable controversy among contemporary artists. They showed no marks of handling or brushwork, and not a few artists were doubtful whether they could be accepted as paintings at all.
Richard Green is an international family business of great distinction, his three galleries are in the heart of the London art world. For three generations, Richard Green has dealt in traditional and classical Post War paintings of the highest quality dating from the 17th through to the 21st Century. Forming a collection of paintings is a most interesting and rewarding experience. However, art must be wisely selected with professional advice. Richard Green assists collectors to make their choices, providing the scholarly background to each painting, and advising on framing, hanging, insurance and all other aspects of collecting. The gallery exhibits a selection of paintings from its unrivalled stock at the principal International art fairs, and maintains close contact with clients. Connoisseurs marvel at the collection of Fine Old Masters, 18th Century British, Sporting, Marine, Orientalists, French Impressionist, Victorian, European and Modern British paintings. This is an exciting time for Richard Green, as the third-generation family art firm celebrates fifty-five years in business and sees the construction of a new building at 33 New Bond Street, the first purpose-built art gallery on the street since the early twentieth century. Richard Green opened its premises at 147 New Bond Street in 1998, after two years’ complete renovation of the five storey building which had been occupied by Wildenstein since 1936, and which had once been the home of Lord Nelson. The spectacular main gallery, with its beautiful glazed ceiling, has displayed to advantage our shows of Sporting, Impressionist and Modern British paintings, and this year plays host to the Old Master show, while 33 New Bond Street is being rebuilt. The new millennium saw the rapid development of the market for the leading British artists of the twentieth century, and the gallery found the light, airy spaces of 147 New Bond Street ideal for showing the works of Henry Moore, William Scott, Patrick Heron, Ivon Hitchens and Frank Auerbach. Having acquired the freehold of 33 New Bond Street in 1995, Richard Green has now taken the opportunity to redevelop the premises, creating six floors of galleries and offices. We have commissioned an entirely new building, designed by George Saumarez Smith of Robert Adam Architects and brilliantly fusing modernity and tradition. The sculpture on the façade is being created by the distinguished Scottish sculptor Alexander Stoddart, whose commissions include the bas-reliefs for The Queen’s Gallery at Buckingham Palace. The gallery is scheduled to open in eighteen months’ time and will provide a flexible space for our stock from Old Masters to twentieth century paintings, as well, we hope, as giving Bond Street a wonderful new building. Visit the gallery’s website at … http://www.richard-green.com