Marshall Claxton (12 May 1811 – 28 July 1881) was an English subject,

genre Genre () is any form or type of communication in any mode (written, spoken, digital, artistic, etc.) with socially-agreed-upon conventions developed over time. In popular usage, it normally describes a category of literature, music, or other for ...

, landscape and

portrait painter Portrait Painting is a genre in painting, where the intent is to represent a specific human subject. The term 'portrait painting' can also describe the actual painted portrait. Portraitists may create their work by commission, for public and pr ...

Life

Claxton was born in

Bolton Bolton (, locally ) is a large town in Greater Manchester in North West England, formerly a part of Lancashire. A former mill town, Bolton has been a production centre for textiles since Flemish weavers settled in the area in the 14th ...

, Lancashire, the son of a Wesleyan Methodist minister, the Rev. Marshall Claxton, and his wife Diana. Marshall studied under John Jackson, R.A., and at the Royal Academy school where he enrolled on 26 April 1831. He had his first picture in the Royal Academy in 1832, a portrait of his father. In subsequent years about 30 of his pictures were shown at Academy exhibitions. In 1834 he was awarded the first medal in the painting school, and obtained the gold medal of the

Society of Arts The Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA), also known as the Royal Society of Arts, is a London-based organisation committed to finding practical solutions to social challenges. The RSA acronym is used m ...

in 1835 for his portrait of Sir Astley Cooper. From 1837 to 1842 he worked in Italy and then returned to London, gaining a prize of £100 for his "Alfred the Great in the Camp of the Danes". In 1850 Claxton went to Sydney, Australia, with a large collection of pictures, but had little success in selling them. While in Sydney he painted a large picture, "Suffer little children to come unto me", a commission from the Baroness Burdett-Coutts. This was described in '' Household Words'' as 'the first important picture' painted in Australia.Macmillan, David S., 'Claxton, Marshall (1813–1881)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University
accessed 22 August 2011
In September 1854 Claxton left Sydney for

Calcutta Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, the official name until 2001) is the Capital city, capital of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal, on the eastern ba ...

, where he sold several of his pictures. He returned to England in 1858 via

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Medit ...

, and died in London after a long illness on 28 July 1881. He married and had two daughters,

Adelaide Adelaide ( ) is the capital city of South Australia, the state's largest city and the fifth-most populous city in Australia. "Adelaide" may refer to either Greater Adelaide (including the Adelaide Hills) or the Adelaide city centre. The dem ...

and Florence Claxton, both of whom were artists and represented in Royal Academy exhibitions between 1859 and 1867. Claxton's "General View of the Harbour and City of Sydney" is in the Royal collection in England, and there are two pictures by him in the Dickinson collection in the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney. His portraits of Bishop William Broughton and Dean Cowper are at St. Paul's College,

University of Sydney The University of Sydney (USYD), also known as Sydney University, or informally Sydney Uni, is a public research university located in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and is one of the country's ...

, and that of the Rev. Robert Forrest is exhibited at The King's School,

Parramatta Parramatta () is a suburb and major Central business district, commercial centre in Greater Western Sydney, located in the state of New South Wales, Australia. It is located approximately west of the Sydney central business district on the ban ...

. His Godiva painting is in the Herbert Art Gallery and he also has work displayed at the Derby Art Gallery and the

Victoria and Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and nam ...

.Marshall Claxton
BBC, accessed August 2011 He was also known for his depictions of Wesleyan and Methodist subjects, made popular as prints.

Sources

*Macmillan, David S.

'' Australian Dictionary of Biography'', Volume 3, MUP, 1969, pp 424–425. *

External links

Claxton online
(ArtCyclopedia) {{DEFAULTSORT:Claxton, Marshall 1811 births 1881 deaths 19th-century English painters English male painters British genre painters English portrait painters Landscape artists People from Bolton 19th-century English male artists

Life

Sources

Further reading

External links