WILLIAM

See also:

• POWELL, FREDERICK YORK (1850-1904)
• POWELL, GEORGE (c. 1658-1714)
• POWELL, JOHN WESLEY (1834–1902)
• POWELL, VAVASOR (1617-1670)

POWELL

See also:

• FRITH (or FRYTH), JOHN (c. 1503-1533)
• WILLIAM POWELL FRITH (1818-19og)

FRITH (1818-19og)  , English painter, was born at Aldfield, in Yorkshire, on the 9th of January 1819 . His parents moved in 1826 to Harrogate, where his father became landlord of the Dragon Inn, and it was then that the boy began his general education at a school at Knaresborough . Later he went for about two years to a school at St Margaret's, near Dover, where he was placed specially under the direction of the drawing-master, as a step towards his preparation for the profession which his father had decided on as the one that he wished him to adopt . In 1835 he was entered as a student in the well-known art school kept by Henry Sass in Bloomsbury, from which he passed after two years to the Royal Academy schools . His first independent experience was gained in 1839, when he went about for some months in Lincolnshire executing several commissions for portraits; but he soon began to attempt compositions, and in 1840 his first picture, " Malvolio, cross-gartered before the Countess Olivia," appeared at the Royal Academy . During the next few years he produced several notable paintings, among them " Squire Thornhill relating his town adventures to the Vicar's family," and " The Village Pastor," which established his reputation as one of the most promising of the younger men of that time . This last work was exhibited in 1845, and in the autumn of that year he was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy . His promotion to the rank of Academician followed in 18J3, when he was chosen to fill the vacancy caused by Turner's death . The chief pictures painted by him during his tenure of Associateship were: " An English Merry-making in the Olden Time," " Old Woman accused of Witchcraft," " The Coming of Age," " Sancho and Don Quixote," " Hogarth before the Governor of Calais," and the "Scene from Goldsmith's ` Good-natured Man,' " which was commissioned in 185o by Mr Sheepshanks, and bequeathed by him to the South Kensington Museum . Then came a succession of large compositions which gained for the artist an extraordinary popularity . " Life at the Seaside," better known as " Ramsgate Sands," was exhibited in 18J4, and was bought by Queen Victoria; " The Derby Day," in 1858; " Claude Duval," in 186o; " The Railway Station," in 1862; " The Marriage of the Prince of Wales," painted for Queen Victoria, in 1865; " The Last Sunday of Charles II.," in 1867; " The Salon d'Or," in 1871; " The Road to Ruin," a series, in 1878; a similar series, " The Race for Wealth," shown at a gallery in King Street, St James's, in 188o; " The Private View," in 1883; and " John Knox at Holyrood," in1886 . Frith also painted a considerable number of portraits of well-known people .

In 1889 he became an honorary retired academician . His " Derby Day " is in the

National Gallery of British Art . In his youth, in common with the men by whom he was surrounded, he had leanings towards romance, and he scored many successes as a painter of imaginative subjects . In these he proved himself to be possessed of exceptional qualities as a colourist and manipulator, qualities that promised to earn for him a secure place among the best executants of the British School . But in his middle period he chose a fresh direction . Fascinated by the welcome which the public gave to his first attempts to illustrate the life of his own times, he undertook a considerable series of large canvases, in which he commented on the manners and morals of society as he found it . He became a pictorial preacher, a painter who moralized about the everyday incidents of modern existence; and he sacrificed some of his technical variety . There remained, however, a remarkable sense of characterization, and an acute appreciation of dramatic effect . Frith died on the 2nd of November 1909 . Frith published his Autobiography and Reminiscences in 1887, and Further Reminiscences in 1889 .