Lord Frederick Leighton
English Academic painter, sculptor, illustrator & writer. born 1830 - died 1896.
The leading establishment figure in Victorian art, was the first artist to be ennobled. He was President of the Royal Academy for almost two decades, and his presidency was a time of unrivaled prestige, and success. Leighton carried out his duties with panache, and scrupulous fairness. He was a classical painter producing highly finished pictures, and was also an excellent portraitist (see his portrait of Sir Richard Burton the explorer and orientalist). Leighton was a sophisticated, cosmopolitan figure, much of his early life having been spent in Germany and Italy. The Leighton family was financially independent, his grandfather having been Doctor to the Russian Royal Family. Leighton's father was also a Doctor, but retired in middle-life due to the onset of deafness. Leighton enrolled in the Berlin School of art in his early teens, having lied about his age. The following year he enrolled in an Art Academy in Florence. The Nazarenes and Italian Renaissance painters were considerable early influences. His cosmopolitan early life exposed him to a wider range of influences than any other English painter of his day. Many people now believe that his decorative pictures of the 1870s represent his best work, though his large classical pictures remain extremely impressive.
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