John Robert Dicksee (British painter) 1817 - 1905
John Robert Dicksee was the first in a family of artists, of which his nephew, Sir Frank Dicksee, has become the best known. Despite being encouraged into a business career, he gradually established himself, first as a lithographer, then as a portrait and figurative artist. His only art training was six months spent studying under H. P. Briggs, RA. From 1852 to 1897 he was head drawing master at the City of London School and he was also the first curator of the works of art belonging to the Corporation of the City of London. He exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy and other British art societies. His Times obituary recorded that 'he retained the use of his faculties practically to the end and, indeed, his last picture was in this year's exhibition of The Royal Academy (1905)'. The Willing Captive was first exhibited in The Royal Academy Exhibition in 1876. Source: Carrick Hill * * * Thomas Francis Dicksee (British painter) 1819 – 1895 Thomas Francis Dicksee was an English painter born in Condom. He was a portraitist and painter of historical, genre subjects - often from Shakespeare - who was the pupil of H. P. Briggs. He exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1841 until the year of his death. His brother John Robert Dicksee was also a painter, and his children, Frank Bernard Dicksee and Margaret likewise became painters. In The Dictionary of Victorian Painters, Herbert Dicksee is given as his son also, but according to the City of London School, where Herbert taught, he was the son of John Robert Dicksee. Thomas Dicksee produced a series of portraits of family members, and also painted idealised portraits, including the Shakespearean characters Ophelia, Miranda and Ariel. A Juliet is in the Sunderland Art Gallery, and At the Opera is in the collection of Leicester Art Gallery. A portrait of Lady Teasdale is in the Adelaide Art Gallery, Australia. Source: Wikipedia * * * Francis Bernard (Frank) Dicksee (British painter and illustrator) 1853 - 1928 Francis Bernard Dicksee was an English Victorian painter and illustrator, best known for his pictures of dramatic literary, historical, and legendary scenes. He also was a noted painter of portraits of fashionable women, which helped to bring him success in his own time. Dicksee was born in London, England. His father, Thomas Dicksee, was a painter who taught Frank as well as his brother Herbert and his sister Margaret from a young age. Dicksee enrolled in the Royal Academy in 1870 and achieved early success. He was elected to the Academy in 1891 and became its President in 1924. He was knighted in 1925, and named to the Royal Victorian Order by King George V in 1927. Dicksee painted The Funeral of a Viking in 1893, which now resides in Manchester Art Gallery, having been there since 1928 when it was presented by Arthur Burton in memory of his mother to the Corporation of Manchester. Victorian critics gave it both positive and negative reviews, for its perfection as a showpiece and for its dramatic and somewhat staged setting, respectively. The painting was used by Swedish Viking/Black metal band Bathory for the cover of their 1990 album, Hammerheart. Another widely recognised work is La Belle Dame Sans Merci held by the Bristol Museum and Art Gallery. If you're in America, think of stopping by the Mead Art Museum at Amherst College in Western Massachusetts to view Ophelia. Source: Wikipedia * * * Margaret Isabel Dicksee (British painter) 1858 – 1903 Daughter of Thomas Francis Dicksee. Margaret Isabel Dicksee was a painter and illustrator and daughter of Thomas Francis Dicksee and the sister of artist Frank Dicksee. She attended the RA Schools where she won a £40 award for her painting Deepening Shadows, a subject from The Old Curiosity Shop, and also achieved a silver medal. She painted dramatic historical scenes and more domestic interior scenes. An example with a good late Pre-Raphaelite theme is In Memoriam (1890), where a mother shows her baby the portrait of the deceased father - the baby is excited, the mother wistful. The picture has something of the mood of Byam Shaw's Boer War 1900. In 1895 her Royal Academy picture The Children of King Charles I was singled out for special mention in the Royal Academy Illustrated supplement to the Magazine of Art. Another well-received picture was Oliver Goldsmith Reading She Stoops to Conquer (The First Audience) (1895). In general, Dicksee's oil paintings are rather illustrative - they were sometimes reproduced as illustrations - and tend somewhat to the sentimental. An example of an overly-sweet painting is Handel Discovered Playing in the Garret (1893). She drew ink illustrations for various magazines, including the Quiver, and decorations for poems by Woolner. * * * Herbert Thomas Dicksee (British painter) 1862 – 1942 Son of Thomas Francis Dicksee. Herbert Thomas Dicksee was a British painter who specialised in oil paintings of dogs, particularly the deerhound. Prints and etchings of his best-known paintings were widely distributed by publishers such as Klackner of London, and his work is popular among collectors and dog enthusiasts today. Dicksee belonged to an illustrious artistic family. His father was the artist John Dicksee (1817–1905). John's brother Thomas (1819–1895), also a painter, was the father of Sir Frank Dicksee (1853–1928), president of the Royal Academy from 1924 until his death. (Herbert, meanwhile, had one sister, whose name was Amy.) Dicksee studied art at the Slade School, London, on a scholarship. His first painting was exhibited in 1881. Dicksee specialised in sympathetic paintings of hounds, such as "After Chevy Chase" and "Silent Sympathy", but he also painted big cats at the London Zoo, of which he was a Fellow. His paintings were usually done from life; he kept numerous dogs as pets. Those pets featured in his etchings included a bloodhound, a French bulldog named "Shaver", and several pugs and bull terriers. Many of Dicksee's works, especially those painted during the war years of 1914–1918, depict the dogs accompanying melancholy young ladies. His most frequent model was the actress Gladys Cooper. The artist married Ella Crump in 1896, and they had two children, Maurice (who was killed in World War I) and Dorothy (who also studied art). Herbert Dicksee died in 1942 in Hampstead. His daughter Dorothy was the executor of his will, which directed her to destroy most of the plates for Dicksee's etchings.
