Later Victorian Portraits Catalogue

Walter Greaves (1846-1930), Painter

Boat builder and painter; born 4 July 1846, son of a Chelsea boat builder and waterman. With brother Henry Greaves (1844–1904) took James McNeill Whistler rowing on the Thames (‘he taught us to paint and we taught him the waterman’s jerk’) 1860s–70s, and became Whistler’s studio assistant until ‘discarded’ late 1870s;[1] brief but controversial recognition following exhibitions at Goupil Galley 1911, 1922; frankly destitute by 1922 and admitted to the Charterhouse; died 23 November 1930.

The first person we saw in the [Chelsea Arts] Club – though I don’t think he ever became a member, was Walter Greaves. He was seated in the Clubroom upstairs, wearing a flat-brimmed top hat and a flowing French tie, waiting possibly for Whistler, for whom we at first mistook him. Our impression was that he was very shabby and dirty-looking for such a celebrity, whom we had never seen up to that time. A lonely figure, he sat in silence, while we in truth were too shy to speak to him, imagining ourselves in the presence of a famous man. The fact was that Walter Greaves imitated Whistler to the extent of dressing as nearly like him as he could.[2]

Carol Blackett-Ord

Footnotesback to top

1) Local Studies and Archives, Kensington Central Library, has a scrapbook, catalogues and newspaper cuttings relating to Henry and Walter Greaves, and the Art Collection has ‘about 140 items’ by the brothers: see http://rbkc.gov.uk/leisureandlibraries/libraries/localstudiesandarchives.aspx
2) Hartrick 1939, p.132.

Referencesback to top

Denker 1995
Denker, E., In Pursuit of the Butterfly: Portraits of James McNeill Whistler, exh. cat., National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC, 1995.

Evans 1928
Evans, P., Fifty Heads: Drawn by P. Evans, London, 1928.

Greaves 1984
Walter Greaves, 1846–1930, and the Goupil Gallery: Paintings, Drawings and Etchings, exh. cat., Michael Parkin Fine Art, London, 1984.

Hartrick 1939
Hartrick, A.S., A Painter’s Pilgrimage through Fifty Years, Cambridge, 1939.

Holroyd 1996
Holroyd, M., Augustus John, London, 1996.

Maas 1984
Maas, J., The Victorian Art World in Photographs, London, 1984.

MacDonald 1995
MacDonald, M.F., James McNeill Whistler: Drawings, Pastels and Watercolours. A Catalogue Raisonné, New Haven and London, 1995.

Pocock 1970
Pocock, T., Chelsea Reach: The Brutal Friendship of Whistler and Walter Greaves, London, 1970.

Pocock 2004
Pocock, T., ‘Greaves, Walter (1846–1930)’, ODNB, Oxford, 2004.

Rankalawon 1989
Rankalawon, J., ‘The Sketchbooks of Powys Evans’, Archive, vol.19, no.82, 1989, pp.67–73.

Rothenstein 1926
Rothenstein, J., The Portrait Drawings of William Rothenstein 1889–1925, London, 1926.

Rothenstein 1931–2
Rothenstein, W., Men and Memories: Recollections of William Rothenstein, 2 vols, London, 1931–2.