John
Atkinson Grimshaw was born in Leeds in 1836.
His father was a policeman but in 1848 he found work with the Great
Northern Railway Company. Grimshaw's parents were strict Baptists
and his mother strongly disapproved of his interest in painting and
on one occasion she destroyed all his paints.
In 1852 Grimshaw became a clerk at the Great
Northern Railway office in Leeds. The
city had several art galleries and Grimshaw was able to see the work
of Holman
Hunt
(The
Light of the World),
Henry Wallis (Death
of Chatterton)
and
William Powell Frith (Derby
Day).
Grimshaw decided to become a full-time painter
and in 1861 he left his job with the Great
Northern Railway. Grimshaw's paintings were sold in two art galleries,
smaller picture dealers and a couple of bookshops in Leeds. One of
his main customers was Thomas
Fenteman, who owned an antiquarian booksellers. Fenteman was a deeply
religious man and would only buy the pictures after Grimshaw had confirmed
that they had not been painted on a Sunday.
Grimshaw became a popular artist in Leeds
and in 1865 he was able to move with his wife to a more expensive
part of the city. William Agnew, a London
art dealer, began purchasing his work. Further success came when a
picture by Grimshaw was accepted by the Royal
Academy. By 1870 Grimshaw was in a position to buy Knostrop Old
Hall, a large seventeenth-century manor house, two miles
from Leeds. Fanny Grimshaw gave birth to
fifteen children but only six reached adulthood.
Until the early 1870s Grimshaw's paintings were predominantly still
lifes with a few landscapes of the Leeds
area. However, he gradually became interested in painting night scenes.
This included Liverpool from Wapping
(1875), Nightfall
down the Thames
(1880), Shipping on the
Clyde (1881), Park Row,
Leeds (1882), The
Thames by Moonlight
(1884), Liverpool
Quay by Moonlight
(1887)
and Prince's
Dock, Hull
(1887).
These paintings often included the smoke pollution and damp fogs that
were common in industrial cities in the late 19th century.
Grimshaw had campaigned for a Leeds
City Art Gallery since it was first suggested by Edmund Bates in 1862,
and after a long struggle it was eventually opened in 1888. The Gallery
mounted annual spring exhibitions in which Grimshaw was always represented.
John Atkinson Grimshaw died in 31st October 1893.
John Atkinson Grimshaw, Whitby Harbour by
Moonlight
(1867)
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