Category: Biographies
In the year 1841 I exhibited a picture at the Suffolk Street Gallery, and I recollect accidentally overhearing fragments of a conversation between a certain Joe Allen and a brother member of the Society of British Artists in Suffolk Street. Allen's picture happened to hang nea...
In the year 1841 I exhibited a picture at the Suffolk Street Gallery, and I recollect accidentally overhearing fragments of a conversation between a certain Joe Allen and a brot...
2. CHAPTER II.About the year 1852 I began the first of a series of pictures from modern life, then quite a novelty in the hands of anyone who could paint tolerably. When the picture which was...
3. CHAPTER III.This picture explains itself, but there is a circumstance connected with it which is, I think, well worth relating; and as I heard it from Leech's own lips at one of the pleasan...
4. CHAPTER IV.Leech had long passed his boyish days before his love for field sports showed itself in his works. I recollect his saying how fruitful of subject the hunting-field, the stubble,...
5. CHAPTER V.In looking at the plethora of lovely women's faces in the "Pictures of Life and Character," the spectator may fairly ask himself to realize, if he can, anything more exquisite;...
6. CHAPTER VI.In the "Ingoldsby Legends" Leech found a very congenial field for the exercise of his powers. Though I will not presume to prophesy respecting literary merit, I venture to think...
7. CHAPTER VII.Perhaps the most striking difference between Leech and the caricaturists who preceded him, as well as those who were his contemporaries, was shown in the part that beauty played...
8. CHAPTER VIII.In 1858 a second series of "Pictures of Life and Character," and later a third, were presented to a delighted public. The history of the immortal Briggs, collected from _Punch's...
9. CHAPTER IX.During one of the "sittings" which Dickens gave me when I painted his portrait, I asked him if, when he drew the character of Pecksniff, any of his inspiration had arisen from a...
10. CHAPTER X.John Leech may be truly said to be _sui generis_; there has been nothing like him before his time, or since his bright and short career ended. It would be difficult to imagine a...
11. CHAPTER XI.The reader has only to look at the early numbers of _Punch_ to see how inferior were the drawings compared to Leech's work, or to that of the excellent artists now at work on _P...
12. CHAPTER XII.The extreme difficulty--in some instances the impossibility--of procuring copies of some of the books illustrated by Leech makes exact chronological sequence impossible in any a...
13. CHAPTER XIII.The late Frederick Tayler, whose water-colour drawings are familiar to all lovers of art, was a guest for some days at the mansion of the Duke of Athole--an elderly gentleman th...
14. CHAPTER XIV.At the time when the troop of artists and literary men were stumping the country with their theatrical performances, Leech lived in Alfred Place, which he soon left for a charmi...
15. CHAPTER XV.Amongst the many books illustrated by Leech are some sporting novels, written, I think, by a Mr. Surtees. "Ask Mamma," "Handley Cross," "Plain or Ringlets," "Mr. Romford's Hound...
16. CHAPTER XVI.I will here leave the sporting novels for a time and introduce my reader to the "Bon Gaultier Ballads," and if he make his first acquaintance with that work through this introdu...
17. CHAPTER XVII."Handley Cross" is another of the sporting novels so admirably illustrated by Leech. The hero of this book is a certain Mr. Jorrocks, a retired "great city grocer of the old sch...
18. CHAPTER XVIII."No man can put more into a picture than there is in himself," says Sir Joshua Reynolds. As an art student I have always felt the force of this aphorism. I would even go further...
19. CHAPTER XIX.The difficulty of gauging public taste in matters literary and artistic can be proved by numberless examples. How often does the manager of a theatre place in trembling anxiety...
20. CHAPTER XX.Whether that charming writer, Dr. John Brown, knew Leech in the flesh or not, I cannot say; but that he knew and fully appreciated him in spirit is evident enough in a paper pub...
21. CHAPTER XXI.No doubt all painters, poets, literary men, Churchmen--in short, all men who have attained to more or less celebrity--become the prey of the autograph-hunter, either in the form...
22. CHAPTER XXII."Silent, gentle, forbearing, his indignation flashed forth an eloquence when roused by anything mean or ungenerous. Manly in all his thoughts, tastes, and habits, there was abou...
23. CHAPTER XXIII.About the year 1860--or thereabouts--there was exhibited in London a huge picture of Nero contemplating the ruins of Rome, by a German artist named Piloti. On seeing the picture...
24. CHAPTER XXIV.The way to a certain place is said to be paved with good intentions. If that be so, a large space in the pavement must be filled by intentions to write the life of Leech. In the...
25. CHAPTER XXV.For the following interesting paper my readers are indebted to Mr. Nethercote, of Moulton Grange, Northamptonshire, who sent it to my predecessor, Mr. Evans, amongst whose Leech...