Hubert von Herkomer
Though a very successful portrait artist, especially of men, he is mainly remembered for his earlier works that took a realistic approach to the conditions of life of the poor.
Hard Times (1885; Manchester Art Gallery) showing the distraught family of a travelling day-labourer at the side of a road, is one of his best-known works.
"[1] Lorenz Herkomer left Bavaria in 1851 with his wife and child for the United States, settling in Cleveland, Ohio.
They soon returned to Europe and in 1857 settled in Southampton at 10, Windsor Terrace, where the family spent seventeen years before moving to Watford.
I was always inclined to art, and as a little boy worked principally at my father's bench, but by the time I had turned twelve I had produced quite a number of water-colour drawings.
In his Chums interview thirty years later, Herkomer recalled the trip vividly: "Ah, how I remember that first visit to Germany!
His oath of allegiance to Queen Victoria was witnessed by Sir Sills John Gibbons, Lord Mayor of London.
[citation needed] It was by his oil painting The Last Muster (1875), after a wood-engraving of 1871, that he established his position as an artist of high distinction at the Royal Academy.
[3] In 1884, a full-page caricature of Herkomer by FG (his friend Franz Goedecker) appeared in Vanity Fair, captioned "Painter, Sculptor, Blacksmith &c".
[3] At Bushey, Herkomer built a large house, Lululaund, named after Lulu Griffith, the second of his three wives, in a heavily German style, designed about 1886 by the American architect Henry Hobson Richardson, for whom he painted a portrait.
[3] On her deathbed, in 1901, Queen Victoria was initially photographed in study and eventually painted by Herkomer as an alternative to the more traditional mask produced in wax, which her son, the new king Edward VII, decried.
The painting, showing the Queen lying half-length among lilies and other flowers, swathed in white tulle, her right hand holding a cross, is part of the Royal Collection held at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight, where it hangs in the Pavilion Principal Stairs Vestibule.
[3] Herkomer exhibited a large number of memorable portraits, figure subjects, and landscapes, both in oil and watercolour; he achieved marked success as a worker in enamel, as an etcher, a mezzotint engraver, and an illustrative draughtsman and he exercised wide influence upon art education by means of the Herkomer School (Incorporated) at Bushey, which he founded in 1883 and directed without payment until 1904, when he retired.
His second and third wives hailed from Ruthin, and he spent long periods in Snowdonia painting with his friend, Charles Mansel Lewis from Stradey Castle, Llanelli.
[3] Herkomer died at Budleigh Salterton on 31 March 1914 and was buried in the churchyard beside St James's Church, Bushey.
[3] Among his pupils at the Herkomer School of Art in Bushey were many artists who later became notable in their own right, including Cecil Jay and Beryl Fowler.
