Edward Robert Hughes

Not to be confused with Edward Hughes (14 September 1832 – 14 May 1908), who specialised in portrait painting.

Midsummer Eve, c. 1908

Edward Robert Hughes RWS (5 November 1851 – 23 April 1914) was an English painter who worked prominently in watercolours, but also produced a number of significant oil paintings. He was influenced by his uncle and eminent artist, Arthur Hughes who was associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, and worked closely with one of the Brotherhood's founders, William Holman Hunt.

Work

Having settled on his career choice, Edward Robert Hughes attended Heatherley's in London to prepare himself for the chance of auditioning for the Royal Academy School. Hughes became a student at the Royal Academy School in 1868. While Pre-Raphaelitism played an influential part in shaping Hughes work, Aestheticism is also seen in his paintings.

E.R.Hughes is widely known for his works Midsummer Eve and Night With Her Train of Stars yet he built a career as a portrait painter to the upper classes.

Holman Hunt's Lady of Shalott, 1889-1892, with the assistance of Hughes.

In addition to being an accomplished artist himself, E.R.Hughes was also a studio assistant to the elder artist and Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood founding member William Holman Hunt. In later life Hunt suffered from glaucoma and Hughes made a substantial contribution to a number of Hunt's paintings. Two of the paintings that Hughes worked on with Hunt were The Light of the World, which is displayed in St Paul's Cathedral, and The Lady of Shalott, which is exhibited at the Wadsworth Atheneum.

On his own he experimented with ambitious techniques and was a perfectionist; he did numerous studies for many of his paintings, some of which turned out to be good enough for exhibition.

Dream Idyll (A Valkyrie), c. 1902

Hughes held several important offices within the artistic community over his lifetime such as becoming a member of the Art Workers Guild in 1888, and was on their committee from 1895 to 1897. He was elected to Associate Membership of The Royal Watercolour Society (ARWS) on 18 February 1891, and he chose as his diploma work for election to full membership a mystical piece (Oh, What's That in the Hollow?) inspired by a verse by Christina Rossetti entitled Amor Mundi. His painting A Witch was given by the Royal Watercolour Society to King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra to mark the coronation in 1902. This work is based on his illustration entitled The Demon transporting Isabella to Ortodosia in W.G. Waters The Italian Novelists published in 1901. In later years Hughes served as the Vice-President of the RWS before leaving in 1903.Throughout his career, E.R.Hughes exhibited his works in several galleries around London: Dudley Gallery, Grosvenor Gallery, New Gallery, The Royal Academy, and toward the end of his career he exhibited with The Royal Society of Painters in Water Colours (RWS).

His works can be seen in public collections including Cartwright Hall, Bradford, Cambridge & County Folk Museum, Maidstone Museum & Art Gallery, Bruce Castle Museum, Kensington Central Library, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, the Harris Museum & Art Gallery, Preston, and the National Trust for Scotland.

Birmingham Museums Trust staged a retrospective exhibition, Enchanted Dreams: The Pre-Raphaelite Art of E.R. Hughes, from 17 October 2015 to 21 February 2016 at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery.

His auction record is $866,500 (522,366 GBP) for Dream Idyll (A Valkyrie), sold at Sotheby's (New York) on 22 October 2009.

Family life

E.R. Hughes (known to his family as "Ted") was born in Clerkenwell, London, in 1851 to Edward Hughes Snr. and Harriet Foord. He had one brother, William Arthur Hughes, who was two years younger than him, became a frame maker (gilder) and by 1891 a photographer. During the 1860s he lived for a time with his uncle Arthur Hughes and his family which included his son Arthur Foord Hughes, also an artist. In 1874 Hughes became engaged to Mary MacDonald, the daughter of the writer George MacDonald. Unfortunately Mary died four years later. In 1883 Hughes married Emily Eliza Davies. In 1913 they moved to St Albans, Hertfordshire, where he was later stricken with appendicitis. He died after surgery on 23 April 1914 in his home (no. 3 Romeland). The marriage did not produce any offspring.

List of works

• The Spinet (1870), Watercolour
• Evensong (1871), Private Collection, Watercolour
• Hushed Music (1871), Oil
• A rainy Sunday (1872), Private Collection, Watercolour
• Sabbath Morn (1872), Private Collection, Oil
• Caroline Hill (1873) Bruce Castle Museum, London, Oil
• Mrs Cecelia Bowen-Summers (1874)
• Gray Hill (1874) Bruce Castle Museum, London, Oil; portrait of John Edward Gray Hill
• The Picture Book aka A Brother and Sister seated before a Hearth (1875), Private Collection, Oil
• A Young Beauty (1875), Private Collection, Oil
• A Basket of Oranges aka George Mackay Macdonald (1878), Philadelphia Museum of Art, USA, Watercolour
• Landscape with Trees (1880), Kensington Central Library, Oil
• Miss Frances Georgina Mitford (1880), Watercolour
• Portrait of a Lady (1883), Chalk
• Mildred (1885), Chalk
• Robert (1885), Chalk
• Henriette Imrie Beausire (1887), Chalk drawing
• Nora Janet Beausire (1887), Chalk drawing
• Bell and Dorothy Freeman (1889), Geffrye Museum, London, Watercolour
• Pack Clouds Away and Welcome Day (1890), Watercolour
• In the Corner Chair (1891), Private Collection, Chalk
• The careless Shepherd (1892)
• Dealing with the Fairies (1892), Private Collection
• Mrs Douglas Arden (1892)
• The Poet Gringoire (1892)
• Fra Lippo Lippi (1893), Watercolour
• Study for a Picture aka Fra Lippo Lippi (1893), Williamson Art Gallery and Museum, Birkenhead, Drawing
• Biancabella e Samaritana aka Biancabella and Samaritana, her Snake Sister (1894)
• Portrait of a Child with a Chair (1894), Chalk
• William Holman Hunt (c.1894), Private Collection
• Betruccio's Bride (1895), Private Collection
• Elaine Blunt (1895), Chalk
• Portrait of a Man (1895), Chalk
• Oh, What's That in the Hollow? (c.1895), Royal Watercolour Society, Watercolour
• The Shrew Katherina (1896), Private Collection
• Hilda Virtue Tebbs (1897)
• Margaret Webster (1897), Chalk
• Men in the Park (1897)
• Diana's Maidens aka A Coward (1898), Private Collection, Watercolour
• Lewis F. Day (1900)
• Twixt Hope and Fear (c.1900), Oil
• Woman walking her Dog aka The Transformation of Callisto (c. 1900), Watercolour
• Gwendolen Freeman (1901)
• Dorothea (1901), Pencil
• The Princess out of School (c.1901), National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia, Watercolour
• A Witch (1902), Royal Collection, Watercolour
• Margaret Ellinor Morse (1902), Private Collection
• Dream Idyll (A Valkyrie) (c.1902), Private Collection
• Anthony Freeman (1903), Watercolour
• The lesser Light (1904)
• Dusky Night (1905), Private Collection
• Wings of the Morning (1905), Private Collection, Mixed Media
• Alphonse Legros (c.1905), Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, USA
• Dick the Shepherd (1906)
• The Mantilla(1906)
• Orazio Cervi (1906)
• The Valkyrie's Vigil (1906), Private Collection
• William Callow (c.1906), National Portrait Gallery, London
• Heart of Snow(1907)
• Monna Giovanna (1907), Watercolour
• All that I Saw at the Wedding aka Bridesmaid (1908), Harris Museum, Preston, Watercolour
• Avery Colebrook as a Boy (1908), Pastel
• Portrait of an elderly Lady (1908), Chalk
• Midsummer Eve (c.1908), Private Collection
• The Grass of Parnassus (1909)
• Head Study of a Young Girl (1909), Private Collection
• Waxing Moon (1910), Watercolour
• Radiant Moon (1910), Private Collection, Watercolour
• Waning Moon (1910), Watercolour
• Shrouded Moon (1910), Watercolour
• Christopher Garnett (1911)
• The Journey's End (1911), Private Collection, Watercolour
• Summer Fantasy (1911)
• Study of a Head (1911), Private Collection
• Weary Moon (1911), Watercolour
• Twilight Fantasies (1911)
• Blondel's Quest (1912), Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, Watercolour
• Marion Fry Pease, Daughter of Thos. Pease (1912), Pastel
• Night with her Train of Stars (1912), Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, Mixed Media
• Byram's Tryst, Oil
• Charles Edward Leith-Hay Clark, Leith Hall, Kennethmont, Oil
• Day, Private Collection, Watercolour
• Daydreams
• Dayspring
• Elsie Bibby
• The Expulsion, Cartwright Hall, Bradford
• Fisher Lane by Great Bridge, Cambridge, Museum of Cambridge, Oil
• In Dreams
• Isle of the Stormy Capes, Iona, Watercolour
• John Mackenzie- A Cuillin Guide, Chalk
• Margaret Webster
• Milkmaid in front of a Landscape, Oil
• Making Music
• A Mediterranean Landscape, Oil
• A misty River, Oil
• Night, Private Collection, Watercolour
• The Nymph Callisto, Watercolour
• An Old Stump in Epping Forest, Oil
• Orlando, Mixed Media
• The Pipe Smoker, Chalk
• Princess out of School, Pencil and Ink
• Returning Home , Oil
• Reverie, Pastel
• Portrait of Rosalind, Private Collection
• Royal Procession, Knohl Collection, USA, Oil
• The Shepherd Boy, Oil
• Study of a Male Head, Chalk
• Study of a young Tennis Player, Mixed Media
• Tithe in Kind, Watercolour
• Trees at Twilight, Mixed Media
• A Viking, Portrait of Harold Norbury, Mixed Media
• Woman in a Shawl, Mixed Media
• With the Wind, Private Collection, Pastel
• A young Child, Chalk

Gallery

• 
  Bertuccio's Bride
• 
  Heart of Snow
• 
  Idle Tears
• 
  Night with her Train of Stars
• 
  Sabbath Morn
• 
  The Shrew Katherina
• 
  Summer Fantasy.
• 
  The Valkyrie's Vigil.
• 
  William Holman Hunt
• 
  A Young Beauty

See also

• List of Pre-Raphaelite paintings

Bibliography

• Engen, Rodney (January 1990). The Twilight of Edward Robert Hughes RWS. Watercolours & Drawings.
• Osborne, Victoria Jean (2010). A British Symbolist in Pre-Raphaelite circles : Edward Robert Hughes RWS (M.Phil.). OCLC 729577738.

External links

• Edward Robert Hughes at Find a Grave
• A British Symbolist In Pre-Raphaelite Circles: Edward Robert Hughes RWS (1851–1914) MPhil Thesis by Victoria Osborne
• Portraits of Edward Robert Hughes at the National Portrait Gallery, London