Adelaide Sophia Claxton (10 May 1841 – 29 August 1927) was a British painter, illustrator, and inventor. She was one of the first women artists to make a major part of her living through the commercial press, selling satirical and comic illustrations to more than half a dozen periodicals.

Personal life

Claxton was born in London, one of two gifted daughters of the British painter

Marshall Claxton Marshall Claxton (12 May 1811 – 28 July 1881) was an English subject, genre, landscape and portrait painter. Life Claxton was born in Bolton, Lancashire, the son of a Wesleyan Methodist minister, the Rev. Marshall Claxton, and his wife Dia ...

; both Adelaide and her sister Florence followed their father in becoming painters. However, she did not share her father's taste for large oil paintings. She studied art at Cary's School in the Bloomsbury area of London, where she began to focus on figure painting in watercolor. In 1850, she traveled with her family to Australia, where she remained for four years before returning to England by way of Calcutta, India.

Career

Claxton's paintings combine scenes of domestic life with literary or fantasy elements like ghosts and dreams. She began exhibiting her work in the late 1850s at the Society of Women Artists, and between then and 1896 exhibited multiple times at the

Royal Academy of Arts The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its purpo ...

, Royal Hibernian Academy, and

Royal Society of British Artists The Royal Society of British Artists (RBA) is a British art body established in 1823 as the Society of British Artists, as an alternative to the Royal Academy. History The RBA commenced with twenty-seven members, and took until 1876 to reach fif ...

, as well as the Society of Women Artists. One of her works, ''A Midsummer Night's Dream at Hampton Court'', was so popular that she ended by painting 5 copies of it; another, ''Little Nell'', she copied 13 times. ''Wonderland'', a painting showing a little girl reading tales from the Brothers Grimm by candlelight, is much reproduced. The English painter Walter Sickert based his oil painting ''She Was the Belle of the Ball fter Adelaide Claxton' on one of her works. Claxton earned her living in part through her paintings and in part by selling comic illustrations and satirical drawings of high society to popular magazines like ''Bow Bells'', '' The Illustrated London News'', ''

London Society ''London Society'' was a Victorian era illustrated monthly periodical, subtitled "an illustrated magazine of light and amusing literature for the hours of relaxation". It was published between 1862 and 1898 by W. Clowes and Sons, London. The m ...

'', '' Judy'' (where she was one of the chief illustrators), and several others. She was one of the first British women artists to work regularly in the magazine market, where she was paid on the order of £2–7 per illustration. As early as 1859, the ''Illustrated Times'' featured her painting ''The Standard-Bearer'' on its cover. Claxton also authored two illustrated books, ''A Shillingsworth of Sugar-Plums'' (1867; puzzlingly advertised as containing "several hundreds of Num-nums and Nicy-nicies") and ''Brainy Odds and Ends'' (1904; a compendium of mottoes and the like). Claxton's work is in the collection of the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, and other arts institutions.

Personal life and inventions

In 1874, Claxton married George Gordon Turner, an event that effectually ended her career as an illustrator. The couple settled in Chiswick and had a son. Claxton turned her interest to invention, and in the 1890s several patents were registered under her married name of Adelaide Sophia Turner. One of these was for an "Armpit-Crutch for Bed-Rests and Chair-Backs". Another was for "Ear-caps for outstanding ears" (i.e., ears that stuck out).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Claxton, Adelaide British women painters British satirists British illustrators British women illustrators British inventors 19th-century British painters Women satirists Women inventors 19th-century British scientists 19th-century British women artists 19th-century British women writers 19th-century British writers Artists from London Writers from London 1841 births 1927 deaths