Ford Madox Brown (British painter) 1821 - 1893
Ford Madox Brown was an English painter of moral and historical subjects, notable for his distinctively graphic and often Hogarthian version of the Pre-Raphaelite style. Arguably, his most notable painting was Work. Brown spent the latter years of his life painting The Manchester Murals for Manchester Town Hall which depicted Mancunian history. He was born in Calais and studied art in Antwerp under Egide Charles Gustave Wappers. In 1843 he submitted work to the Westminster Cartoon Competition, for compositions to decorate the new Palace of Westminster. He was not successful. His early works were, however, greatly admired by the young Dante Gabriel Rossetti, who asked him to become his tutor. Through Rossetti, Brown came into contact with the artists who went on to form the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (PRB). Though closely linked to them, he was never actually a member of the brotherhood itself. Nevertheless, he remained close to Rossetti, with whom he also joined William Morris's design company, Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co., in 1861. He was a close friend of the landscape artist Henry Mark Anthony. Brown was also the main organiser of the Hogarth Club, a short lived replacement for the PRB which existed between 1858 and 1861. Brown was married twice. His first wife Elizabeth Bromley died in 1846 aged 27, after giving birth to a daughter, Lucy. He later married his model Emma Hill, who appears in many of his paintings and is the wife in The Last of England. His son with Emma, Oliver Madox Brown (1855–1874) showed promise both as an artist and poet, but died of blood poisoning. Their daughter, Catherine, married Francis Hueffer; through Catherine, Brown was the grandfather of novelist Ford Madox Ford and great-grandfather of Labour Home Secretary Frank Soskice. * * * Catherine Hueffer, née Madox Brown (British painter) 1850 - 1927 Born 1850, the first child of Ford madox Brown's second marriage to Emma Hill, and second of his three surviving children. Her earliest memories were of modelling for her father as a babe in arms, and visits by the Rossetti brothers. She Attended Queen's College and was trained in art by her father, Ford Madox Brown. She also worked as his model and studio assistant. Her first exhibition was in 1869 and there after chiefly painted in watercolors. In 1872 she married musicologist, Franz Hueffer. Her husband's death in 1889 left her in financial straits and she was denied a Civil List pension. Though she is generally thought to have ceased painting in the mid-1870s, there is evidence to indicate that she attempted to resume her carrier in the 1890s. (See portrait of Elsie Martindale Hueffer, 1895). Her last exhibition was in 1901. She died in 1927.
