John Atkinson Grimshaw Biography

The artist John Atkinson Grimshaw was a Victorian-era painter, born in Leeds, England, living from 1836 to 1893. At the age of twenty-four, to the dismay of his parents, Grimshaw departed from his first job as a clerk for the Great Northern Railway to pursue a career in art.
Grimshaw’s primary influence was the Pre-Raphaelites. True to the Pre-Raphaelite style, Grimshaw put forth landscapes of accurate color and lighting, and vivid detail. Grimshaw would often paint landscape paintings that typified seasons, or that typified a kind of weather. By applying his skill in lighting effects, and unusually careful attention to detail, Grimshaw was often capable of intricately describing a scene, while strongly conveying its mood.
Grimshaw painting On Hampstead Hill is considered one of Grimshaw’s finest oil paintings, exemplifying his skill with a variety of light sources, in capturing the mood of the passing of twilight into the onset of night. Dulce Donum (1855), on whose reverse Grimshaw wrote, “mostly painted under great difficulties,” captures the music portrayed in the piano player, entices the eye to meander through the richly decorated room, and to consider the still and silent young lady who is meanwhile listening.