DOI article:
Halton, Ernest G.: The water-colours of Alfred W. Rich
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21214#0016
The Water-Colours of Alfred W. Rich
architectural subjects, Netley Abbey, Hampshire
(p. 3), and St. Peter's, Huntingdon (p. n). Both
show originality in treatment, the latter being par-
ticularly successful. Here, as we have already
said, the lead pencil has been employed with good
effect. The texture of time-worn stone is ad-
mirably suggested, while the greenish tone of the
building harmonises agreeably with the sky. Ad-
mirable is the rendering of the tower, which reveals
sound and expressive draughtsmanship.
Mr. Rich was born at Scaynes Hill, Sussex, in
1856, and very early in life developed a craving to
express visibly his ideas of what appealed to him
as beautiful in nature. “I remember now,” he
recently told the writer, “ looking from the garden
where I lived as a child and noticing the white
tower of an old Gothic church, brilliantly con-
trasted with a shapely mass of dark trees in the
foreground. I was seven years old, yet I know
the effect would strike me now as it did then.”
This early desire to interpret the varied manifesta-
tions of nature steadily grew, the innate artistic
spirit developed, until the medium of water-colour
came as a natural means of expression.
But it was many years before he was able to devote
himself to landscape painting. From 1871 he was
occupied entirely in designing and heraldic paint-
ing, work which, in the light of his later development,
must have been exceedingly irksome to him. It
was not till 1890, when he was thirty-four years of
age, that he entered as a student at the Slade
School under Professor Alphonse Legros, and later
Professor Fred Brown. He remained at the Slade
until 1896, exhibiting at the New English Art
Club the following year for the first time. He was
elected a member shortly afterwards and it will be
generally admitted that the numerous drawings he
has shown at the Club have added distinction to its
exhibitions. In 1914 he became a member of the
International Society of Painters, Sculptors, and
Gravers. His drawings have been hung in exhibi-
tions of the Royal Scottish Academy, the Royal
Hibernian Academy, at Liverpool, Manchester,
Bradford, Leeds, Huddersfield, Hull, Oldham,
Derby, Bath, and Brighton, besides many foreign
and colonial galleries including St. Louis, Berlin,
Rome, Venice, and New Zealand. Amongst
permanent collections which contain examples of
“NEAR STEVENAGE, HERTS”
BY ALFRED W. RICH
architectural subjects, Netley Abbey, Hampshire
(p. 3), and St. Peter's, Huntingdon (p. n). Both
show originality in treatment, the latter being par-
ticularly successful. Here, as we have already
said, the lead pencil has been employed with good
effect. The texture of time-worn stone is ad-
mirably suggested, while the greenish tone of the
building harmonises agreeably with the sky. Ad-
mirable is the rendering of the tower, which reveals
sound and expressive draughtsmanship.
Mr. Rich was born at Scaynes Hill, Sussex, in
1856, and very early in life developed a craving to
express visibly his ideas of what appealed to him
as beautiful in nature. “I remember now,” he
recently told the writer, “ looking from the garden
where I lived as a child and noticing the white
tower of an old Gothic church, brilliantly con-
trasted with a shapely mass of dark trees in the
foreground. I was seven years old, yet I know
the effect would strike me now as it did then.”
This early desire to interpret the varied manifesta-
tions of nature steadily grew, the innate artistic
spirit developed, until the medium of water-colour
came as a natural means of expression.
But it was many years before he was able to devote
himself to landscape painting. From 1871 he was
occupied entirely in designing and heraldic paint-
ing, work which, in the light of his later development,
must have been exceedingly irksome to him. It
was not till 1890, when he was thirty-four years of
age, that he entered as a student at the Slade
School under Professor Alphonse Legros, and later
Professor Fred Brown. He remained at the Slade
until 1896, exhibiting at the New English Art
Club the following year for the first time. He was
elected a member shortly afterwards and it will be
generally admitted that the numerous drawings he
has shown at the Club have added distinction to its
exhibitions. In 1914 he became a member of the
International Society of Painters, Sculptors, and
Gravers. His drawings have been hung in exhibi-
tions of the Royal Scottish Academy, the Royal
Hibernian Academy, at Liverpool, Manchester,
Bradford, Leeds, Huddersfield, Hull, Oldham,
Derby, Bath, and Brighton, besides many foreign
and colonial galleries including St. Louis, Berlin,
Rome, Venice, and New Zealand. Amongst
permanent collections which contain examples of
“NEAR STEVENAGE, HERTS”
BY ALFRED W. RICH