Walter Langley

Paintings

Walter Langley (June 8, 1852 – March 21, 1922) was an English painter and founder of the Newlyn School of plein air artists. He was born in Birmingham and his father was a journeyman tailor.[1] At 15 he was apprenticed to a lithographer. At 21 he won a scholarship to South Kensington and he studied designing there for two years. The sometimes highly ornate work is mainly in gold and silver and in a Renaissancestyle. He returned to Birmingham but took up painting full time, and in 1881 was elected an Associate of the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists. In the same year he was offered £500 for a year's work by a Mr Thrupp (a Birmingham photographer). With this money he and his family moved to Newlyn where he was one of the first artist's to settle.

Politically left wing for his era, he was noted for his social realist portrayals of working class figures, particularly fishermen and their families. He was a supporter of Charles Bradlaugh a radical socialist politician. Many of his paintings reflect his sympathy with the working class fisher-folk amongst whom he lived. One of the best known is his 1883 For Men Must Work and Women Must Weep (City Museums and Art Gallery, Birmingham) based on Charles Kingsley's poem The Three Fishers (1851).

Although one of the first to settle in the Newlyn artists' colony Newlyn School, Langley initially benefited little from its growing fame, partly because of his working class origins and partly because until 1892 he painted largely in watercolour rather than the more prestigious medium of oils.[2] but his early training in lithography gives his paintings a detail and texture that show his technical skills.

Later in his career his reputation grew. One of Langley's paintings was singled out as "a beautiful and true work of art" by Leo Tolstoy in his book What is Art?,[3] while in 1895 Langley was invited by the Uffizi to contribute a self portrait to hang alongside those of Raphael, Rubens and Rembrandt in their collection of portraits of great artists.Today his work is considered "vital to the image of the Newlyn School" and "alongside Stanhope Forbes ... the most consistent in style and substantial in output".[2]

References

1. ^ 1861 Census, RG9; Piece: 2136; Folio: 72; Page: 8
2. ^ a b Fox, Caroline and Greenacre, Francis, "Walter Langley", Painting in Newlyn 1880-1930, London, Barbican Art Gallery, 1985, pp 62-65
3. ^ Tolstoy, Leo, What is Art, (Translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky)

Roger Langley, Walter Langley: Pioneer of the Newlyn Art Colony, Sansom & Co.

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