DOI Heft:
Nr. 164 (October, 1910)
DOI Artikel:Taylor, J.: A Glasgow painter: William Wells, R.B.A.
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19867#0369
William Wells, R.B.A'.
' THE BRACKEN HILL " (OIL) BY WILLIAM WELLS
Phil May, then doing some of his best work in
"Lightning Sketches" at the Society's "Smokers,"
for the Sydney Bulletin.
Back in the Old World again, study at Paris
followed, and in rural France, where the artist
grappled with atmospheric phenomena in a manner
unknown at the schools.
With such probationary training Wells returned
to his native city, Glasgow, in all the confident
assurance of youth, to prove the fallacy of the
accepted belief that " a prophet is not without
honour save in his own country." He did not at
once prove it, for the public at first withheld the
honour, and at an age when a man's career should
be fully determined, Wells could not sell a picture,
and all his special training seemed to count for
nothing.
There followed a period of introspection and a
mood that bordered on despair, the upshot being
a determination to put aside the easel and seek a
career in some more promising direction.
Whatever may have been in the mind of the
268
young artist then, he blames not the public now
nay, with the modesty of genius, he applauds the-
discrimination that prompted the rejection of his
half-considered reflections of Nature's changeful'
moods.
A chance acquaintance and one of those sudden-
impulses that change the current of a man's life,
decided a career for Wells, and we next find him
entering on a seven years' term as scenic artist at
Preston. Strenuous, unintermittent toil lay ahead,,
close application during every hour of the day.
Scenes must be got ready for productions, obliga-
tions kept, ambitions suppressed, while a big brush
was used industriously, all in the interests of ways-
and means. And all the time, no coquetting with
the old love Art, no painting of pictures, no visiting,
of exhibitions, no share in the happiness of that
art world from which the artist was completely
cut off.
But the period in the wilderness was merely a-,
temporary burial of the young artist's hopes and
ambitions ; during that time he was taught the.-
' THE BRACKEN HILL " (OIL) BY WILLIAM WELLS
Phil May, then doing some of his best work in
"Lightning Sketches" at the Society's "Smokers,"
for the Sydney Bulletin.
Back in the Old World again, study at Paris
followed, and in rural France, where the artist
grappled with atmospheric phenomena in a manner
unknown at the schools.
With such probationary training Wells returned
to his native city, Glasgow, in all the confident
assurance of youth, to prove the fallacy of the
accepted belief that " a prophet is not without
honour save in his own country." He did not at
once prove it, for the public at first withheld the
honour, and at an age when a man's career should
be fully determined, Wells could not sell a picture,
and all his special training seemed to count for
nothing.
There followed a period of introspection and a
mood that bordered on despair, the upshot being
a determination to put aside the easel and seek a
career in some more promising direction.
Whatever may have been in the mind of the
268
young artist then, he blames not the public now
nay, with the modesty of genius, he applauds the-
discrimination that prompted the rejection of his
half-considered reflections of Nature's changeful'
moods.
A chance acquaintance and one of those sudden-
impulses that change the current of a man's life,
decided a career for Wells, and we next find him
entering on a seven years' term as scenic artist at
Preston. Strenuous, unintermittent toil lay ahead,,
close application during every hour of the day.
Scenes must be got ready for productions, obliga-
tions kept, ambitions suppressed, while a big brush
was used industriously, all in the interests of ways-
and means. And all the time, no coquetting with
the old love Art, no painting of pictures, no visiting,
of exhibitions, no share in the happiness of that
art world from which the artist was completely
cut off.
But the period in the wilderness was merely a-,
temporary burial of the young artist's hopes and
ambitions ; during that time he was taught the.-