John Atkinson Grimshaw Painting by Paul Meijering

About "John Atkinson Grimshaw Painting"

by Paul Meijering

About the artwork

Realistic acrylic portrait and painting of the English painter John Atkinson Grimshaw, painted by the Dutch fine artist Paul Meijering - The original painting measures 90 x 120 cm.

Grimshaw was the son of a police officer. He received no art training and taught himself to paint from examples. In 1861, to his parents' dismay, he gave up his job as a railway official to devote himself to painting. He soon found success, especially with landscapes and still lifes, and proved capable of more than making a living.

Grimshaw initially exhibited mainly in Leeds, but from the mid-1960s he also received invitations from London and exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts, among others. He achieved his greatest fame from 1870, when he also started working regularly in London, especially with his city and harbour scenes, often night scenes, always with clearly recognisable seasonal influences. He also painted portraits, interiors, works with classical Greek and Roman themes and literary subjects. His work has a clear Pre-Raphaelite bias, which he nevertheless reworked into a style all his own.

Grimshaw enjoyed commercial success with his painting in his time, buying a large villa in Leeds in the 1970s and being able to afford a second house in London. He had 15 children, six of whom reached adulthood. Two sons, Arthur and Louis, also became painters. Grimshaw died of tuberculosis in 1893.

In his time, Atkinson Grimshaw's work was controversial because he did not paint directly from examples from nature but mainly from photographs. According to his obituary, artists of the time felt that it was questionable whether his work could be accepted as 'real' paintings.