Thomas Bond Walker (1861

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

- 1933) was an Irish painter. Walker moved to

Belfast Belfast ( , ; from ga, Béal Feirste , meaning 'mouth of the sand-bank ford') is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast. It is the 12th-largest city in the United Kingdo ...

in the 1880s and started exhibiting with the ''Belfast Art Society''. According to the 1911 Census of Ireland, Tom Bond Walker, a widower by this time, and his only child, David Bond Walker (b. 1892) were residing at Rushfield Avenue, in the upper Ormeau Road area of south Belfast. Tom is specified as a ‘Portrait Painter.’ To augment his income he tutored private pupils, one of whom was Paul Henry. Henry recalled Walker as ''"a shy, retiring, ineffectual little man with a genuine enthusiasm for teaching"''. Henry was sixteen when he first met Walker, an encounter which Henry later described as having ''“changed the whole course”'' of his life by being introduced to oil paints.Paul Henry, ''Further Reminiscences'', 1973 Walker later introduced Henry to the paintings of Robert W. Fraser (

fl. ''Floruit'' (; abbreviated fl. or occasionally flor.; from Latin for "they flourished") denotes a date or period during which a person was known to have been alive or active. In English, the unabbreviated word may also be used as a noun indicatin ...

1874-c.1901), whose work he greatly admired. Fraser often painted scenes of rivers, estuaries and boats. Henry's seascapes date from this period and the influence of Fraser is evident.

References

19th-century Irish painters 20th-century Irish painters Irish male painters 1861 births 1933 deaths 19th-century Irish male artists 20th-century Irish male artists {{Ireland-painter-stub