William Lionel Wyllie (1851-1931) had
first-hand knowledge of the River Thames. He sailed its
length from London to the sea and painted, drew and
etched most of its features &endash; its craft, people
and landscape.
Wyllie was born into a family of artists in 1851. The
rather bohemian family spent their summers on the coast
of northern France. Wyllie recalled the journey by
steamer down the crowded Thames from London on their way
to Boulogne.When he was about 12 he went to art school in
London, and in 1866 he started at the Royal Academy
Schools. In 1869 he won the Turner Gold Medal for
landscape.In 1870 one of the first pictures he exhibited
at the Royal Academy was London from the Monument, a
panoramic view of the city and the river and he began
working as an illustrator of maritime subjects for The
Graphic magazine.He had to reproduce detail accurately in
black and white, and this discipline probably influenced
him when he began making etchings in the early
1880s.Wyllie's first known etching, made in 1884, is
Toil, glitter, grime and wealth on a flowing tide. It was
commissioned by the print publisher Robert
Dunthorne.Wyllie's Thames pictures led him to be elected
an Associate of the Royal Academy in 1889. By 1907, when
he became a Royal Academician, he had moved to a house at
the entrance of Portsmouth Harbour. He had largely turned
to painting naval and historical subjects. Nevertheless,
he continued to make prints of London and the Thames to
the end of his life.
It is the first of some hundreds of prints, many of
the Thames, which Wyllie was to make. Wyllie exhibited
the picture on which it is based at the Royal Academy in
1883. This oil painting is now in Tate Britain. In 1884,
the year after he exhibited Toil, glitter, grime and
wealth on a flowing tide, Wyllie held his first one-man
exhibition in London. Later that year the drawings were
reproduced by the new process of photogravure. They were
included in a large book with the same title and with a
narrative written by Grant Allen.Wyllie constantly made
studies of what he saw. This ranged from cloud
formations, water, buildings and people, to ships and
craft, such as this sheet of studies of Thames barges.He
kept these for reference when making paintings,
watercolours or etchings. Many are among the 7000
drawings that make up the Wyllie collection are now in
the National Maritime Museum.
When Wyllie died in Portsmouth in 1931, he was the
country's most famous marine painter. He was known for: *
his paintings of the Navy* his late work, the Panorama of
the Battle of Trafalgar* his watercolours* his drypoint
etchings.
Lt.Col. Harold Wyllie OBE, RSMA (1880-1975)
Marine painter in oil, watercolour, gouache and etcher of
marine subjects. Born in London on 29th June 1880, son of
W.L. WYLLIE He went to New York in 1898 as special artist
to The Graphic. Fought in South Africa during the Boer
War. He was a pupil of his father and studied under Frank
Short in 1920. Served in the Royal Flying Corps in France
as a pilot in 1914-18 war and received a Commission in
the Regular Army. Posted to the Wiltshire Regiment in
1916 and awarded O.B.E. 1919, and was granted rank of
Lieut.-Colonel on retirement in 1920. He was appointed
Hon. Marine Painter to the Royal Yacht Squadron in 1934,
and became Vice President of the Society of Marine
Artists in 1958. His work is represented in several
public collections. He lived in Portsmouth and later in
Perthshire.
Charles William Wyllie (1853-1923): the younger
brother. During the 1880s, when Wyllie was making his
name with paintings of the Thames and Medway, his younger
brother Charlie often painted similar subjects. but lacks
the fine eye for detail and sense of life
Rowland LANGMAID (R.I., R.B.A., A.R.E., R.CAM.A.)
(1897-1956)
A marine painter and etcher who studied under William
Lionel Wylie. He served in the Royal Navy reaching the
rank of Lt Commander. Born on 1 December 1897. He was the
eldest son of Captain J Langmaid, who was an engineer in
the Royal Navy. Langmaid joined the Royal Navy in 1910
and went to sea at the beginning of the First World War
serving at the Dardenelles in HMS "Agamemnon" where he
made official sketches for landings.During the World War
I era Lieutenant Rowland Langmaid, R.N., made a series of
etchings to accompany the poem,The Rules of the Navy
which was published .After the war Rowland Langmaid
studied at the Royal Academy School and the Royal College
of Art. He held exhibitions at the Royal Academy and in
London, New York, and Paris. Langmaid was a highly
accomplished engraver as well as a painter in oil and
watercolour with a style similar to the famous marine
artist W L Wyllie with whom he collaborated in Sea Fights
of the Great War, 1914-18. Langmaid returned to the
Active List in 1939 in the rank of Lieutenant Commander
and served as official Admiralty artist to the
Commander-in-Chief Mediterranean Fleet from 1941 to 1943.
He died in Calle de la Bolsa, Malaga, Spain 11th February
1956.
