James Smetham (1821-1889)

Professions: Painter; Etcher; Illustrator

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  James Smetham (1821-1889)

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  James Smetham (1821-1889)

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  JAMES SMETHAM (BRITISH 1821-1889) THE ROSE OF DAWN 61cm x 35cm (24in x 13.8in)

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  James Smetham (1821-1889)

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James Smetham Biography

(b Pateley Bridge, Yorks, 9 Sept 1821; d London, 5 Feb 1889). English painter, printmaker and writer. After being educated at a school for the sons of Methodist ministers, he was articled to the Gothic Revival architect Edward James Willson (1787–1854) in Lincoln. Willson allowed him to spend much of his time drawing the paintings and sculptures in Lincoln Cathedral and after three years let him leave to become a painter. Smetham then worked as a portrait painter in Shropshire before moving to London (1843), where he studied as a probationer at the Royal Academy Schools and met Dante Gabriel Rossetti, who became a close friend. In 1851 he made his début at the Royal Academy and was appointed drawing-master at Normal College in Westminster, London, a post he retained for the next 26 years. He met John Ruskin in 1854, who was greatly impressed by his work. The first of his many breakdowns occurred in 1857. His early work remains largely unknown, but such paintings as Eve of St Agnes (watercolour, 1858; London, Tate) display the intense religious mysticism that marked all his mature work and brought him close to William Blake, an artist he much admired. Many of his paintings, for example Mary Magdalene (1868; Newcastle-upon-Tyne, priv. col., see Malins and Bishop, pl. 19), show the influence of the Pre-Raphaelites, though the design and figures are often rather awkwardly executed. Smetham also produced some book illustrations, such as those for E. B. Tylor’s Anahuac, or Mexico and the Mexicans (London, 1861), and a collection of his etchings appeared as Studies from a Sketch Book (London, 1860–61; copy, London, Tate). He exhibited intermittently at the Royal Academy until 1869 and in 1877 suffered a breakdown from which he never recovered. His thoughts on art and religion appear in his articles and numerous letters. The articles were mainly published in the London Quarterly Review , the most famous being his review of January 1869 of Alexander Gilchrist’s Life of William Blake (London, 1863). He also wrote his thoughts in small booklets that he called ventilators and sent to friends.

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