Frederick Richard Pickersgill

Frederick Richard Pickersgill
Self portrait, c. 1850
Born	(1820-09-25)25 September 1820 London, England
Died	20 December 1900(1900-12-20) (aged 80) Yarmouth, Isle of Wight, England
Notable work	The Burial of Harold Orsino and Viola

Frederick Richard Pickersgill RA[nb 1] (25 September 1820 – 20 December 1900) was an English painter and book illustrator. Born in London into a family of artists, he was admitted to the Royal Academy Schools in 1840.[2] He exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy between 1839 and 1875. Most of these works depicted scenes drawn from literature (including Edmund Spenser and John Milton), religion, and history.[2]

Pickersgill's The Burial of Harold was accepted as a decoration for the Houses of Parliament in 1847 for the sum of £500.[2] He also did some landscapes under the influence of the Pre-Raphaelites.

In 1856 Pickersgill was photographed at The Photography Institute by Robert Howlett, as part of a series of portraits of artists. The picture was among a group exhibited at the Art Treasures Exhibition in Manchester in 1857.[3] In addition, Pickersgill seems to have experimented with photography himself.[2]

Pickersgill was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy in 1847 and a full Royal Academician in June 1857, but retired in 1888.[1][2] He was keeper of the Royal Academy Schools from 1873 to 1887.[1][2]

Footnotes

1. Elected in 1857, Pickersgill retired from his position as Royal Academician in 1888.[1]

References

1. "Frederick Richard Pickersgill, R.A." Royal Academy Collection. Retrieved 23 October 2016.
2. "Pickersgill, Frederick Richard". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/22214. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
3. "Howlett, Robert". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/58919. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)

External links

• 23 artworks by or after Frederick Richard Pickersgill at the Art UK site
• Frederick Richard Pickersgill
• Lee, Sidney, ed. (1901). "Pickersgill, Frederick Richard" . Dictionary of National Biography (1st supplement). London: Smith, Elder & Co.