Published in the Fine Art Connoisseur Magazine
November/December Issue 2006
Biography of Peter Trippi
Peter Trippi is Editor of Fine Art Connoisseur, the bimonthly magazine that serves informed collectors of 18th, 19th, and 20th century painting and sculpture. He holds a MA in Art History from the Courtauld Institute of Art, London; a MA in Visual Arts Administration from New York University; and a BA in History and Art History from the College of William and Mary, Virginia. Mr. Trippi also operates his own company, Projects in 19th-Century Art, organizing exhibitions, writing articles, essays, and catalogues, and lecturing widely; his most recent talks have occurred at Columbia University School of Continuing Education, College Art Association, Christie’s Education, and Royal Academy of Arts.
November/December Issue 2006
Biography of Peter Trippi
Peter Trippi is Editor of Fine Art Connoisseur, the bimonthly magazine that serves informed collectors of 18th, 19th, and 20th century painting and sculpture. He holds a MA in Art History from the Courtauld Institute of Art, London; a MA in Visual Arts Administration from New York University; and a BA in History and Art History from the College of William and Mary, Virginia. Mr. Trippi also operates his own company, Projects in 19th-Century Art, organizing exhibitions, writing articles, essays, and catalogues, and lecturing widely; his most recent talks have occurred at Columbia University School of Continuing Education, College Art Association, Christie’s Education, and Royal Academy of Arts.
Peter Trippi is the author of the wonderful book "J.W.Waterhouse" by Peter Trippi. Please click here to visit our bookstore and place your order with 'Hayden & Fandetta' A Fine and Rare Bookstore.
Benjamin Williams Leader
The British painter Benjamin Williams Leader (1831-1923) was so famous in 1910 that E. M. Forster could assume readers of his new novel, “Howard’s End,” knew exactly how Leader’s landscapes looked. As with so many Victorian art celebrities, the trauma of World War I and the rise of modernism in its wake consigned Leader’s pictures to the margins, and it was only in the 1970s that they began their slow return to respectability.
Leader’s story was fairly typical of his generation. He studied at the local design school before switching to London’s Royal Academy Schools, which he abandoned in 1854 as soon as his first picture was admitted to the Academy’s prestigious Summer Exhibition, the era’s most crucial sales venue. In 1857, the lad changed his surname to Leader, his father’s middle name, to distinguish himself from the large Williams clan of artists, to whom he was not related. Also around this time he abandoned his youthful enthusiasm for the intensive detail of Pre-Raphaelitism and shifted toward more traditional methods.
The British painter Benjamin Williams Leader (1831-1923) was so famous in 1910 that E. M. Forster could assume readers of his new novel, “Howard’s End,” knew exactly how Leader’s landscapes looked. As with so many Victorian art celebrities, the trauma of World War I and the rise of modernism in its wake consigned Leader’s pictures to the margins, and it was only in the 1970s that they began their slow return to respectability.
Leader’s story was fairly typical of his generation. He studied at the local design school before switching to London’s Royal Academy Schools, which he abandoned in 1854 as soon as his first picture was admitted to the Academy’s prestigious Summer Exhibition, the era’s most crucial sales venue. In 1857, the lad changed his surname to Leader, his father’s middle name, to distinguish himself from the large Williams clan of artists, to whom he was not related. Also around this time he abandoned his youthful enthusiasm for the intensive detail of Pre-Raphaelitism and shifted toward more traditional methods.
An Eye For Landscape
Most of Leader’s scenes depict a quiet, idyllic countryside untouched by the Victorian era’s rapid industrialization. More often than not, Leader presented a flat landscape crowned by an enormous sky with prominent clouds, be they high or glowering. Dark masses such as houses, trees, and hillocks are usually set against the sky’s lighter background, and Leader was renowned for his evocation of afternoon sunshine, twilight, and light reflected upon watery surfaces, especially marshy fields in damp weather.
From the mid-1860s, Leader’s brushstrokes grew more free-ranging, probably under the influence of France’s Barbizon painters, whose work he inspected in Paris. Like most Britons, Leader admired the flat scenery of the Dutch Old Masters. Leader cherished a set of engravings after Constable’s landscapes and happily borrowed many of their compositional devices. It was only in the 1860s that Britons thoroughly embraced Constable’s naturalism, which had once been dismissed as unpolished.
Running a Thriving BusinessConstable pictures became hotly pursued by Victorian collectors, and for those who had developed a taste for this brand of naturalism, Leader offered an attractive and cheaper alternative. The rising class of collectors were [sic] not aristocrats familiar with Old Masters and continental sophistication, but self-made, urbanized businessmen who preferred to buy from living British artists, partly out of patriotism and partly to be sure the product was authentic.
Leader’s heyday arrived when he was in his 50s: In 1881, his “February Fill Dyke” won loud acclaim, and two years later he was elected an associate of the Royal Academy. He was not promoted to the rank of full Academician until 1898, when he was 67, and it is still not clear why this honor came so late, especially when he was earning handsomely from the sale of original paintings and the thousands of high-quality prints made after them.
Leader’s heyday arrived when he was in his 50s: In 1881, his “February Fill Dyke” won loud acclaim, and two years later he was elected an associate of the Royal Academy. He was not promoted to the rank of full Academician until 1898, when he was 67, and it is still not clear why this honor came so late, especially when he was earning handsomely from the sale of original paintings and the thousands of high-quality prints made after them.
The Slow But Steady Rise in Interest
Today Leader paintings come up almost every season in the London auctions, and less frequently in New York. On June 13, 2000, Christie’s London sold Leader’s Kempsey Church on the River Severn (1883) for an astonishing £135,750 ($207,568), but more typical sale prices have been in the $30,000-$90,000 range.
Today Leader paintings come up almost every season in the London auctions, and less frequently in New York. On June 13, 2000, Christie’s London sold Leader’s Kempsey Church on the River Severn (1883) for an astonishing £135,750 ($207,568), but more typical sale prices have been in the $30,000-$90,000 range.
Not surprisingly, Leader was attacked by modernists from the 1930s onward as a soulless mirror of nature. Leader died of a stroke in 1923 at the age of 92 – perhaps a gentler fate than enduring more of such criticism. He would surely be gratified by the slow but steady growth of his reputation today, an admiration his pictures amply deserve.
This text has been edited to fit the space allotted.
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