Walter Langley (1852-1922)

Professions: Genre Painter

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  f - WALTER LANGLEY, R.I. 1852-1922

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  WALTER LANGLEY, R.I. 1852-1922 THOUGHTS FAR AWAY

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  Walter Langley (1852-1922)

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  Walter Langley, RI (British, 1852-1922) Cornish fisherfolk

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Walter Langley Biography

(b Birmingham, 8 June 1852; d Penzance, 21 March 1922). English painter. He trained as a lithographer in Birmingham and in 1873 secured a scholarship to study industrial design in London at the National Training School, South Kensington. After his return to Birmingham he was increasingly drawn to figurative painting in watercolour under the influence of such artists as Hubert von Herkomer and Francis Hinkley (1822–77). He visited Newlyn in southern Cornwall for the first time in 1880 and in 1881 pursued plein-air painting during a trip to Brittany. From 1882, when he became the first major artist to settle in Newlyn, he committed himself to depicting the life of the local fishing community, both in carefully observed cottage interiors (e.g. Memories , 1885; Birmingham, Mus. & A.G.) and in dramatic outdoor scenes (e.g. Disaster! Scene in a Cornish Fishing Village , 1889; Birmingham, Mus. & A.G.). His ability to produce large-scale works that combine a broad, simplified handling of form with an understanding of material texture and facial expression owes much to Josef Israëls and the contemporary Dutch school of watercolour painters. As a member of the Institute of Painters in Watercolours (1883) and the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists (1884), he exhibited both in England and abroad (Exposition Universelle, Paris, 1890; World’s Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1893). Despite this success, he was comparatively neglected by critics because he did not show any of his oil paintings until 1892, when he first exhibited at the Royal Academy, London. Subsequent Academy exhibits included Never Morning Wore to Evening but Some Heart Did Break (1894; Birmingham, Mus. & A.G.), which takes its title from Tennyson’s In Memoriam . Langley made several visits to Volendam, the Netherlands (notably in 1904, 1905 and 1906), recording the appearance of the town’s local inhabitants in a striking series of watercolours entitled Faces of Character (priv. col., see 1984 exh. cat., p. 28).

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