Henry Herbert La Thangue - Leaving Home 1890

Henry Herbert La Thangue (19 January 1859 – 21 December 1929) was an English realist rural landscape painter associated with the

Newlyn School The Newlyn School was an art colony of artists based in or near Newlyn, a fishing village adjacent to Penzance, on the south coast of Cornwall, from the 1880s until the early twentieth century. The establishment of the Newlyn School was reminisc ...

.Biography
(Peter Nahum at the Leicester Galleries)

Early life

La Thangue was born in

Croydon Croydon is a large town in south London, England, south of Charing Cross. Part of the London Borough of Croydon, a local government district of Greater London. It is one of the largest commercial districts in Greater London, with an extensi ...

, Surrey, a suburb of London, and was schooled at

Dulwich College Dulwich College is a 2–19 independent, day and boarding school for boys in Dulwich, London, England. As a public school, it began as the College of God's Gift, founded in 1619 by Elizabethan actor Edward Alleyn, with the original purpose of ...

where he met fellow painters Stanhope Forbes and

Frederick Goodall Frederick Goodall (17 September 1822 – 29 July 1904) was an English artist. Life Frederick Goodall was born in London in 1822, the second son of steel line engraver Edward Goodall (1795–1870). He received his education at the Wel ...

. He studied painting first at the

Lambeth School of Art Founded in 1854 as the Lambeth School of Art, the City and Guilds of London Art School is a small specialist art college located in central London, England. Originally founded as a government art school, it is now an independent, not-for-profit ...

and then, from 1874–79, at the

Royal Academy 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 pur ...

, London, winning a gold medal for his work in 1879. This led to a prestigious scholarship for 3 years at the studio of

Jean-Léon Gérôme Jean-Léon Gérôme (11 May 1824 – 10 January 1904) was a French painter and sculptor in the style now known as academicism. His paintings were so widely reproduced that he was "arguably the world's most famous living artist by 1880." The ran ...

at the

École des Beaux-Arts École des Beaux-Arts (; ) refers to a number of influential art schools in France. The term is associated with the Beaux-Arts style in architecture and city planning that thrived in France and other countries during the late nineteenth century ...

in Paris. Here La Thangue came under the influence of the

Barbizon school The Barbizon school of painters were part of an art movement towards Realism in art, which arose in the context of the dominant Romantic Movement of the time. The Barbizon school was active roughly from 1830 through 1870. It takes its name f ...

of open-air landscape painters, such as

Bastien-Lepage Jules Bastien-Lepage (1 November 1848 – 10 December 1884) was a French Painting, painter closely associated with the beginning of naturalism (visual art), naturalism, an artistic style that emerged from the later phase of the Realism (art movem ...

and Dagnan-Bouveret, despite the fact that his teacher was strongly critical of the movement.

Career

Between 1881–82 La Thangue spent some time painting on the coast of

Brittany Brittany (; french: link=no, Bretagne ; br, Breizh, or ; Gallo language, Gallo: ''Bertaèyn'' ) is a peninsula, Historical region, historical country and cultural area in the west of modern France, covering the western part of what was known ...

(one of his works from this period is ''The Boat-builder's Yard''), then in

Donzère Donzère (; oc, Donzèra) is a commune of the Drôme department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region in southeastern France. It is a town located in the south of Drôme and on the left bank of the Rhône river, next to Montélimar. Geography The ...

in the Rhone valley (1883). He became a member of the

Royal Institute of Oil Painters The Royal Institute of Oil Painters, also known as ROI, is an association of painters in London, England, and is the only major art society which features work done only in oil. It is a member society of the Federation of British Artists. Histor ...

in 1883. He returned to England in 1886, exhibiting at the Royal Academy,

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 ...

(RBA),

Grosvenor Gallery The Grosvenor Gallery was an art gallery in London founded in 1877 by Sir Coutts Lindsay and his wife Blanche. Its first directors were J. Comyns Carr and Charles Hallé. The gallery proved crucial to the Aesthetic Movement because it provided ...

, New Gallery,

, and many regional galleries. He became involved in a failed attempt to reform the Royal Academy, helping to found the rival

New English Art Club The New English Art Club (NEAC) was founded in London in 1885 as an alternative venue to the Royal Academy. It continues to hold an annual exhibition of paintings and drawings at the Mall Galleries in London, exhibiting works by both members and a ...

(NEAC) and exhibiting his work there. In the late 1880s, La Thangue moved to

South Walsham South Walsham is a village and civil parish in the English county of Norfolk. It covers an area of and had a population of 738 in 303 households at the 2001 census. increasing to 845 living in 345 households at the 2011 Census. For the purpo ...

Norfolk Norfolk () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and south-west, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the No ...

. A painting of this period, ''Return of the Reapers'' (1886), reflected his interest in photography and photo-realistic depictions. In the early 1890s he settled in

Bosham Bosham is a coastal village and civil parish in the Chichester District of West Sussex, England, centred about west of Chichester with its clustered developed part west of this. Its land forms a broad peninsula projecting into natural Chiche ...

, in

Sussex Sussex (), from the Old English (), is a historic county in South East England that was formerly an independent medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom. It is bounded to the west by Hampshire, north by Surrey, northeast by Kent, south by the English ...

, where he continued his large-scale rural genre paintings, some of which proved to be controversial. In 1896

Tate Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the U ...

acquired ''The Man with the Scythe''. In 1898 he was made an Associate of the Royal Academy, becoming a full Member in 1912. La Thangue eventually made his base at Haylands in

Graffham Graffham is a village and civil parish in West Sussex, England, situated on the northern escarpment of the South Downs. The civil parish is made up of the village of Graffham, part of the Hamlet (place), hamlet of Selham, and South Ambersham. It ...

, Sussex, though he also spent much time painting in

Provence Provence (, , , , ; oc, Provença or ''Prouvènço'' , ) is a geographical region and historical province of southeastern France, which extends from the left bank of the lower Rhône to the west to the Italian border to the east; it is bor ...

in France (after 1901),

Liguria Liguria (; lij, Ligûria ; french: Ligurie) is a Regions of Italy, region of north-western Italy; its Capital city, capital is Genoa. Its territory is crossed by the Alps and the Apennine Mountains, Apennines Mountain chain, mountain range and is ...

in Italy (1903–11) and the

Balearic Islands The Balearic Islands ( es, Islas Baleares ; or ca, Illes Balears ) are an archipelago in the Balearic Sea, near the eastern coast of the Iberian Peninsula. The archipelago is an autonomous community and a province of Spain; its capital is ...

. His southern European landscapes were shown in a successful commercial exhibition at the Leicester Galleries in London, just before the outbreak of World War I. In 1929 he was reportedly deeply affected by the loss of two of his paintings when the ship ''Manuka'' carrying them foundered off the New Zealand coast. In that same year he died in London on 21 December. On 26 December the paintings were recovered near Long Point, New Zealand, in fairly good condition.

Personal life

La Thangue's wife Kate died on 22 September 1940 leaving a bequest of 5 of La Thangue's works to Australasian public art collections: ''Village Fountain'', ''Provençal Fishing Boats'', and ''Plovers on the Marshes'' to the

Robert McDougall Art Gallery The Robert McDougall Art Gallery is a heritage building in Christchurch, New Zealand. It was designed by Edward Armstrong and it opened in 1932. It is a Category I heritage building listed with Heritage New Zealand and is located within the Chri ...

in Christchurch, New Zealand and ''The Weir'' and ''The Wood Gatherers'' to the

Art Gallery of Western Australia The Art Gallery of Western Australia (AGWA) is a public art gallery that is part of the Perth Cultural Centre, in Perth. It is located near the Western Australian Museum and State Library of Western Australia and is supported and managed by the ...

, Perth.

Legacy

La Thangue's work regularly reaches high prices at auction. In 2006, his "Packing grapes" was sold for £70,000 and in December 2009 "In the orchards" realised over £285,000.

Gallery

Henry Herbert La Thangue - In The Dauphiné 1885.jpg, Henry Herbert La Thangue - The Last Furrow 1895.jpg, Henry Herbert La Thangue - Gathering Wool.jpg,

References

External links

*
La Thangue on ArtCyclopedia
{{DEFAULTSORT:La Thangue, Henry Herbert 19th-century English painters English male painters 20th-century English painters Landscape artists Realist painters Royal Academicians People from Croydon 1929 deaths 1859 births Alumni of the Lambeth School of Art People from Bosham 20th-century English male artists 19th-century English male artists