Benjamin Williams Leader Biography

  born: 1831 -Worcester
  dead: 1923 Shere, Surrey
                    
 Leader was Born as Benjamin Williams, he added the surname Leader, his father’s middle name, to distinguish himself from the Williams family.  Upon abandoning a profession in engineering for art, Leader became a pupil at the Royal Academy in 1853.  The following year Leader showed his first painting there, and continued to exhibit prolifically up until his death in 1923.
 
  Leader achieved notable success with his painting, February Fill Dyke exhibited in 1881.  It remains one of the most famous Victorian paintings, and is a tribute to Leader’s artistic talents.  The Royal Academy elected him an associate in 1883, and academician in 1898.  Leader also exhibited abroad, winning the gold medal and the legion of honour in Paris in 1889.
 
  Leader was extremely popular in Victorian times and his paintings sold for high prices.  Today Leader is recognized as one of the most accomplished Victorian landscape artists of his day.  Leader usually chose scenes from the Midlands and the Thames valley, although he was also partial to Welsh landscapes, especially around Bettws-y-Coed.
 
Leader's earlier paintings reflects his admiration of the Pre-Raphaelites, however, Leader later developed a broader, more naturalistic style.  A realistic feeling of space and a lightness of atmosphere are characteristic of his paintings.  James Dafforne, the contemporary art critic of the Art Journal, praised his work in glowing terms in 1871: ‘his style is a happy medium between excess of detail and over elaboration on the one hand, and a dash of execution on the other...we regard Mr. Leader as one of our best landscape painters.’
 
  The Benjamin Williams Leader paintings are represented in the Aberdeen Art Gallery and Museum, the Birmingham City Art Gallery, the Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery, the Towneley Hall Art Gallery, Burnley, the Bristol City Art Gallery, the Ferens Art Gallery, Kingston-upon-Hull, the Guildhall Art Gallery, the Royal Academy of Arts, Tate Britain and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, the Manchester City Art Gallery, the Mappin Art Gallery, Sheffield, the Atkinson Art Gallery, Southport, the Royal Holloway and Bedford New College collection, Surrey and the Worcester City Art Gallery.