British 1723-1792 Sir Joshua Reynolds Locations Reynolds was born in Plympton, Devon, on 16 July 1723. As one of eleven children, and the son of the village school-master, Reynolds was restricted to a formal education provided by his father. He exhibited a natural curiosity and, as a boy, came under the influence of Zachariah Mudge, whose Platonistic philosophy stayed with him all his life. Showing an early interest in art, Reynolds was apprenticed in 1740 to the fashionable portrait painter Thomas Hudson, with whom he remained until 1743. From 1749 to 1752, he spent over two years in Italy, where he studied the Old Masters and acquired a taste for the "Grand Style". Unfortunately, whilst in Rome, Reynolds suffered a severe cold which left him partially deaf and, as a result, he began to carry a small ear trumpet with which he is often pictured. From 1753 until the end of his life he lived in London, his talents gaining recognition soon after his arrival in France. Reynolds worked long hours in his studio, rarely taking a holiday. He was both gregarious and keenly intellectual, with a great number of friends from London's intelligentsia, numbered amongst whom were Dr Samuel Johnson, Oliver Goldsmith, Edmund Burke, Giuseppe Baretti, Henry Thrale, David Garrick and fellow artist Angelica Kauffmann. Because of his popularity as a portrait painter, Reynolds enjoyed constant interaction with the wealthy and famous men and women of the day, and it was he who first brought together the famous figures of "The" Club. With his rival Thomas Gainsborough, Reynolds was the dominant English portraitist of 'the Age of Johnson'. It is said that in his long life he painted as many as three thousand portraits. In 1789 he lost the sight of his left eye, which finally forced him into retirement. In 1791 James Boswell dedicated his Life of Samuel Johnson to Reynolds. Reynolds died on 23 February 1792 in his house in Leicester Fields, London. He is buried in St. Paul's Cathedral.  Related Paintings of Sir Joshua Reynolds :. | Elizabeth Drax | Sarah Siddons as the Traginc Muse | Portrait of Charles Coote, 1st Earl of Bellamont | General Sir Banastre Tarleton | Portrait of Caroline Fox |
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Bernard Hall
Artist, teacher, Director of Melbourne??s National Gallery and Felton Bequest advisor English-born Australian, 1859-1935 was an English-born Australian artist. Hall was born at Liverpool, England. The son of a Liverpool broker of the same family as Captain Basil Hall, writer of books of travel, he was well educated and grew up in an atmosphere of culture. He studied painting at South Kensington, Antwerp and Munich, and worked for some to years in London. He exhibited at the Royal Academy and was one of the original members of the New English Art Club. On the death of George Frederick Folingsby in 1891 he was appointed director of the National Gallery of Victoria at Melbourne, and began his duties in March 1892. He held the position for 43 years aria many of the well-known painters of Australia were trained by him in the gallery painting school. He also acted as adviser to the trustees for purchases for the gallery and art museum, and when the munificent bequest of Alfred Felton was received his responsibilities were much increased. In 1905 he went to England to make purchases under this bequest, and although the amount then placed in his hands was comparatively small, he made better use of what was available than any subsequent adviser of his time. After his return he was expected to advise on everything submitted that might find a place in an art museum and, although he never claimed to be an expert in all these things, he supplemented his knowledge with hard reading and made cornparatively few mistakes. Hall's own paintings were usually interiors, nudes, or paintings of still life. He was often represented at the Victorian Artists' and other societies' exhibitions and held several one-man shows, but he was kept so busily employed as director and adviser, that his paintings had to be done at week ends and during vacations. In February 1934 he again went to London as adviser to the Felton trustees and died there on 14 February 1935. He was married twice in 1894 to Miss E. M. Shuter and in 1912 to Miss G. H. Thomson, who with one son by the first marriage and two sons and a daughter by the second marriage, survived him. Hall was a tall man of distinguished appearance, courteous but slightly austere in manner, with strong convictions, and little sense of compromise. He was extremely conservative in almost everything from his art to his politics.
Paul Frenzeny
French artist , ca.1840-1902
Edwin Douglas
1848-1914