Later Victorian Portraits Catalogue

Alfred William Parsons (1847-1920), Landscape painter, illustrator and garden designer

Painter, illustrator and garden designer; born 2 December 1847, in Somerset. Studied briefly at South Kensington Art School; exh. RA, Dudley Gallery, Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colour, Grosvenor Gallery, New Gallery, Royal Birmingham Society of Artists, New English Art Club and Fine Art Society, where solo shows included Gardens and Orchards (1891), these and flower studies being his trademark subjects; elected ARA 1897, RA 1911; founder member Art Workers Guild 1884; associate Royal Society of Painters in Water Colour (RWS) 1899, member 1905, president 1913; in partnership with others, took up garden design 1899; died 16 January 1920, at Broadway, Worcestershire.

Parsons was among the painters who ‘discovered’ the picturesque Cotswold village of Broadway in 1884 and became a member of the artistic group based there, where he built a house. His closest colleagues were Edwin Austin Abbey and Francis David Millet with whom he collaborated on illustrated books; he also knew John Singer Sargent, Henry James and Mary Anderson.

Soon after his death, he was described as ‘a prolific artist of tender, delicate fibre [with] a vein of genuine poetry in his art, even if it is lacking in intensity and originality’.[1] In appearance he was ‘a short square man with bright blue eyes and a sweet smile, which revealed one broken tooth, which “gave somehow – in spite of a beard – the impression of a small boy” … This was exaggerated by his inability to say the letter “r”.’[2] Temperamentally, he was a ‘highly sociable bachelor who loved parties’, who had also a ‘keen sense of justice and business capacity [that] made him invaluable to colleagues’ in the RWS.[3]

Dr Jan Marsh

Footnotesback to top

1) Borenius 1927b.
2) Fenwick 2004a, p.116 quoting Helen Henschel, When Soft Voices Die, London, 1944, p.94.
3) Fenwick 2004a, p.117; and The Times, 21 Jan. 1920.

Referencesback to top

Borenius 1927b
Borenius, T., ‘Parsons, Alfred William (1847–1920)’, DNB, Oxford, 1927.

Borenius 2004c
Borenius, T., ‘Parsons, Alfred William (1847–1920)’, rev. A. Helmreich, ODNB, Oxford, 2004; online ed., October 2007.

Fenwick 2004a
Fenwick, S., The Enchanted River: Two Hundred Years of the Royal Watercolour Society, Bristol, 2004.

James 1889
James, H., ‘Our Artists in Europe’, Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, vol.79 (US ed.), vol.18 (European ed.), June 1889, pp.50–66; Parsons sub-section pp.58–60.

James 1893
James, H., Picture and Text, New York, 1893.

Lucas 1921
Lucas, E.V., The Life and Work of Edwin Austin Abbey, 2 vols, London, 1921.

Milne 1910
Milne, J.H., Great Britain in the Coronation Year, London, 1910.

Swanson 1990
Swanson, V.G., The Biography and Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings of Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, London, 1990.