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Sir Edmund William Gosse

20 of 25 portraits of Sir Edmund William Gosse

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Sir Edmund William Gosse

by James Russell & Sons
bromide print, before 1917
6 1/8 in. x 4 in. (157 mm x 101 mm) image size
Commissioned, 1917
Photographs Collection
NPG x38473

Sitterback to top

Artistback to top

  • James Russell & Sons (active 1850s-1940s), Photographers. Artist or producer associated with 692 portraits.

Linked publicationsback to top

  • Clerk, Honor, The Sitwells, 1994 (accompanying the exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery from 14 October - 22 January 1995), p. 67 Read entry

    Osbert described Edmund Gosse (1849-1928), the Grand Old Man of literary London, as 'the lingering, final spark of the pre-Raphaelite comet which had flashed through the darkness of the Victorian small hours'.1 He was more prosaically described by Lord Clark as 'a cross between an old tom-cat and an octogenarian pirate'.2 Edith wrote of dining with the Gosses as a pleasure 'not unmingled with terror for one could never foresee exactly what Sir Edmund was going to do to one conversationally.'3

    1 Osbert Sitwell, Noble Essences, 1950, p 35.

    2 Quoted in John Pearson, Façades, Edith, Osbert and Sacheverell Sitwell, 1978, p 110.

    3 Edith Sitwell, Taken Care Of, an autobiography, 1965, p 95.

Events of 1917back to top

Current affairs

King George V changes his name from 'Saxe-Coburg' to 'Windsor.' Amid wartime anti-German public sentiment the British Royal Family decided to relinquish their German name and titles. The name 'Windsor' was chosen as variation on ''Wettin', the late Prince Albert's personal surname.

Art and science

The National Photographic Record is established at the instigation of the photographer Walter Stoneman to commission photographs of 'distinguished living contemporaries of British nationality.' This project allowed the National Portrait Gallery to circumvent its own rule that portraits could not enter the collection until the sitter had been dead ten years.

International

The Russian Revolution begins with the February Revolution and the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II. Seven months later the Bolsheviks led by Vladimir Lenin seize power in the October Revolution forming the Soviet Communist Government, which lasted until 1991. The USA abandons its neutrality and joins the war against Germany following a series of attacks on American passenger and merchant ships.

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