The riverside setting of the town and the nearby Quarry Woods have long made it a beacon for roaming artists (including no less than JMW Turner, see my post on the history of Marlow Bridge for more). Some decided to stay on.
Below I have outlined some of those I have found to be connected to Marlow.
On the 1841 census portrait painter Giles Blake, originally from Bisham, can be found living Chapel Street Marlow with his brother Richard, a frame maker. Earlier records show that Richard was also a carver and gilder. The two men lived 1841 with their mother Eliza.
A couple of years later Giles had left Marlow for Marylebone, where he married Louisa Newman and remained. He later described himself as a colour man or oils man. I see no evidence of Giles achieving any fame but clearly he was accomplished enough to make a living from being a portrait painter for at least a few years. His brother Richard continued to live in Marlow, latterly in West Street. He worked as a gilder and a photographer. His wife Rebecca ran her own photography business from their West Street home doing portraits but also street and country views. More on her here
Those who wanted to learn to draw themselves could pay for lessons at the Marlow Institute when it opened its permanent premises late in the 1800s.
The drawing professor of the Royal Military Academy in West Street 1802 to 1808 was watercolorist William Alexander. He was trained at the Royal Academy and later worked in the Antiquities section of the British Museum.
Exhibitions of art were held in the town centre from at least 1893. A Marlow Artists Society was founded 1895. Though it had a male-dominated leadership, the Society also had female members such as Maud Henderson who had a minor artistic career in drawings. She was staying with her mother at Old Wharf Cottage Marlow when the Society formed and so joined.
Perhaps the best known of the professional founder members of the Society was Frank Percy Wild. Of Northern origin he initially visited the area as a summer holiday maker. He and his new wife Beatrice seemed to make Marlow their permanent home circa 1893. They lived at the Eyrie which was renamed Gossmore House in 1899*. He had a studio in Chapel Street known as Dial Studio. The studio was periodically open to the public, especially before Frank sent works up to the Royal Academy. Marlow saw them first. Small local exhibitions combining both amateur and highly regarded professional artworks were an interesting feature of late Victorian Britain. Royal Academy artworks in your local town centre with a chance to meet the artist in person, at the same time as admiring your neighbours enthusiastic daubs. For all our modern efforts to make art accessible we don't really compare! Frank taught art part time at the private Convent Higher School in St Peters Street from 1894.
Frank specialised in portraits but also painted many Marlow riverside scenes. Do a Google and you will easily find them. The most amazing of his portraits was probably a miniature on ivory of Nina Poore , the size of a shilling, and painted as a wedding gift to her from her future husband the Duke of Hamilton. It was set in a jewelled case bearing her family arms.
Dial Studio was initially used by animal portrait painter Basil Bradley. Obviously not worried about getting his hands dirty, Basil was also one of Marlow's volunteer firefighters. He lived in Marlow from at least 1888 to circa 1892. He was born in London but most closely associated with the Manchester School.
After Frank Percy Wild relinquished Dial studio another artist Carleton Grant took it on.
An amateur artist who had her picture displayed at an exhibition at the Royal Academy exhibition in 1892 was Florence Hannam of West Street, daughter of a jeweller.
Bovingdon Green (and around Marlow Common) was something of an artists colony in the Edwardian and Pre-War era attracting both British and European artists in various media. Most were temporary visitors but in the 1915 Kelly's trade directory sculptor Conrad Dressler was listed at White House Bovingdon Green. A founder of the Medmenham Pottery Company, in the 1890s with his wife, he hired a house in Glade Road, The Limes, before later moving up to Bovingdon Green where the pottery was expanding to.
Following a disagreement with his secretary Conrad was accused of violently attacking him with his walking stick dark night on Bovingdon Green leaving the victim lying unconscious with a head wound.
Conrad as you might have guessed from his name was of German descent, though London born.
Suffragette and artists Mary Sergeant Florence of nearby Lords Wood, Marlow Common and Edith Hayes of Bovingdon Green are discussed more fully in my Groundbreaking Women in Marlow History post published last year here
Edward John Gregory lived more in the heart of town, at Brampton House. The painter was also the president of the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists. He and his wife Mary are both buried in Marlow. I will add a photo of it to the blog in future.
Artist George West Cope RA had a very unhappy time at school in Marlow in 1818 at Prospect House but was not of local origin. More on that school in a dedicated future post.
Separate longer biographical posts on artist Martha Higginson here and photographer Rebecca Blake here
To find every mention of a person here see the A-Z person index in the top drop down menu.
Some research sources:
Kellys Directory Buckinghamshire 1915 from the University of Leicester archives.
Census transcription my own from images of census pages provided by the LDS church at a family history centre except for London censuses which were via the Familysearch website operated by the LDS, accessed July 2020.
Bisham baptismal register, digitized by Google Books accessed July 2020.
Tate.org and National Portrait Gallery online for information on Dressler.
Bucks Herald 23rd May 1896. Copy at the British Library accessed via the BNA August 2020 [For Dressler's assault case]. Bucks Herald 30th April 1892 as previously.
A Dictionary of Artists of The England School by Samuel Redgrave 1874. Copy from the Bavarian State Library. Published by Longman, Green and Company. Digitized by Google. Accessed September 2020.
Wikipedia article on Edward John Gregory, accessed October 2020.
©Marlow Ancestors. If reusing this work, please link back here so my research sources remain linked to the work and properly credited for the information they gave me.
