Later Victorian Portraits Catalogue
William Logsdail (1859-1944), Painter
- Gallery portraits
- All known portraits
- Biography and References
Painter; born 25 May 1859, in Lincoln. Studied Lincoln School of Art 1870s, winning prizes for architectural subjects; attended the Académie Verlat, Antwerp 1878; exhibited Royal Academy 1877–1926, but never courted the establishment (or critics), and was never elected Academician; spent long spells abroad working and travelling (France; Venice 1881–7, 1894–1900); after 1907 turned to portrait painting; elected to Royal Society of Portrait Painters 1912; died 3 September 1944 at the Manor House, Noke, Oxford.
[I] had been painting for nearly 40 years before I discovered that my youthful energy might have been spent more placidly and profitably and that if I had made this discovery early in life I should now possess fortune and position.… I refer to the year 1907 when I painted my little daughter as An Early Victorian, after which people came to my studio for their portraits. After that no more rising at dawn, no more searching for models and paying them for their services, no more out in the open at the mercy of all weathers with all the difficulties of complicated subjects, no more doubt as to the sale of my work when done. [1]
Carol Blackett-Ord
[I] had been painting for nearly 40 years before I discovered that my youthful energy might have been spent more placidly and profitably and that if I had made this discovery early in life I should now possess fortune and position.… I refer to the year 1907 when I painted my little daughter as An Early Victorian, after which people came to my studio for their portraits. After that no more rising at dawn, no more searching for models and paying them for their services, no more out in the open at the mercy of all weathers with all the difficulties of complicated subjects, no more doubt as to the sale of my work when done. [1]
Carol Blackett-Ord
Footnotesback to top
1) W. Logsdail Memoirs (unpubl.), coll. Logsdail family; cited Lincoln 1994, p.52. The Lincoln catalogue is the main source on Logsdail, reproducing self-portraits and photographs from the family albums, and citing from the artist’s unpublished memoirs, coll. Logsdail family.
Referencesback to top
Lincoln 1994William Logsdail 1859–1944, exh. cat., Usher Gallery, Lincoln, 1994.
O’Donoghue 1908–22
O’Donoghue, F., Catalogue of Engraved British Portraits preserved in the Department of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum, 5 vols, London, 1908–22 (and vol.6, H.M. Hake, Supplement and indexes, 1925).
Who Was Who 1952
Who Was Who 1941–50, vol.4, A Companion to Who’s Who Containing the Biographies of Those Who Died During the Decade 1941–50, London, 1952.
Wood 1995
Wood, C., Victorian Painters, Woodbridge, Suffolk, 1995.
Carol Blackett-Ord