Work by Herkomer in the pre-Felton collection
Herkomer Queen Victoria {1892} NGV [PA]
Engravings and etchings acquired on Herkomer’s advice, 1891-92:
Dürer Knight, Death and the Devil 1513 {1891} NGV [PR]
Dürer Melencolia I 1514 {1891} NGV [PR]
Dürer St Jerome in his Study 1514 {1891} NGV [PR]
Dyck [van] 3 etchings from the Iconography {1891} NGV [ET]
Flameng Charles Meryon 1858 {1891} NGV [ET]
Haden 12 etchings {1892} NGV [ET]
Klinger Vom Tode I [Plates 1-10] 1889 {1891} NGV [ET]
Klinger Dead Mother (Vom Tode II, plate 10) 1889 {1891} NGV [ET]
Klinger To the Beautiful in Nature (Vom Tode II, plate 12) 1889 {1891} NGV [ET]
Meryon 6 etchings {1891} NGV [ET]
Rembrandt 11 etchings {1891} NGV [ET]
Whistler Thames set (plates 1-16) {1892} NGV [ET]
Other pre-Felton works acquired on Herkomer’s advice:
Dicksee The Crisis 1891 {1891} NGV [PA]
Johnson A Salvation Army Shelter 1891 {1892} NGV [PA]
Kemp-Welch Horses Bathing in the Sea 1900 {1900} NGV [PA]
North An English Summer’s Day 1891-92 {1892} NGV [PA]
North The Little Copse on the Hill 1891 {1892} NGV [WT]
Smythe The Breadwinners 1890 {1891} NGV [WT]
Swan African panthers {1892} NGV [PA]
Walker The Right of Way {1891} NGV [PA]
Waterhouse Ulysses and the Sirens 1891 {1891} NGV [PA]
Herkomer, of Bavarian descent, grew up in England, and was elected a member of the Royal Academy in 1890. As a painter, he played a notable role in the 1870s and 80s as a social realist, for instance in his famous painting Hard Times (Manchester City Art Gallery, 1885). He was inspired in particular by Frederick Walker: see Walker The Right of Way {1891} NGV [PA]. However after 1890, according to Christopher Wood, Herkomer succumbed to the lure of fashionable portraiture.
In 1883, he founded an art school at Bushey, Hertfordshire, and taught a number of younger artists, including Lucy Kemp-Welch, who took over running the school in 1905: see now Kemp-Welch Horses Bathing in the Sea 1900 {1900} NGV [PA].
Herkomer was also a significant early adviser to the NGV. The most notable acquisitions made on his advice were the large number of engravings and etchings bought for the collection in 1891-2, listed above: see in particular the insightful comments of Irena Zdanowicz (1993).
Refs.
For Herkomer, see Wood Victorian Painters (1995), esp. vol.2, p.68; see also AKL 72 (2012), pp.169-71 and Bénézit 6, pp.1435-36 (listing the NGV’s portrait of Queen Victoria). For his art school at Bushey, see http://www.artbiogs.co.uk/2/schools/herkomer-art-school. See also Zdanowicz “Herkomer” (1993)