ohn Melhuish trudwick was born on 6 May 1849 in Clapham, London, the fourth son of William Strudwick, a grocer, and Sarah Melhuish. John's initial education was at the St. Saviour's Grammar School in Southwark under Canon Boger, which he left at age sixteen. He first studied art at the National Art School of Design in South Kensington and then from 1868 at the Royal Academy Schools, where he was not considered a promising student and met with little success. His early work from the 1860s was influenced by the Scottish artist John Pettie from whom he had received encouragement when the latter was a visitor at the Royal Academy Schools. He spent a short period of time in Pettie's studio. From 1865 he began exhibiting at the Society of British Artists and then later at the Dudley Gallery. In the early 1870s he became a studio assistant for a short time, first to J.R. Spencer Stanhope, and then to Edward Burne-Jones. Their influence, as well as that of early Italian Renaissance painters, shaped the direction of his art.
Hollyer's portrait photo of Strudwick, c.1890.
Strudwick painted mythological, Arthurian and, in particular, symbolist works in his own highly personal and extremely detailed decorative style. By 1876, when he exhibited Songs without Words, his first and only painting exhibited at the Royal Academy, his mature style had already developed.
From 1877 he exhibited at the Grosvenor Gallery, and in 1888 he transferred his allegiance to the New Gallery. According to Christie's biography of him, his last contribution to the New Gallery was in 1908, the year before it held its last exhibition, and after this time he apparently gave up painting. He had also shown at both Liverpool and Birmingham.
He had been fortunate in mid-career by acquiring two extremely rich patrons, Liverpool shipowners, William Imrie and George Holt. Strudwick's career suffered after they withdrew their support. He lived in Edith Villas, Kensington, from 1879 to 1903, about a five-minute walk from Burne-Jones's home The Grange. From 1903 onwards until 1927 he lived at 13 Marlborough Crescent in Bedford Park, close to the home of T.M. Rooke. Strudwick had married Harriet (Florence) Reed, a cab driver's daughter, on 4 June 1879 at Southwark in Surrey. They had one daughter Ethel, born in April 1880. In 1927 he moved with his wife and daughter into a house on the school grounds of St. Paul's Girl's School where his daughter was the headmistress. Strudwick died on 16 July 1937 and was buried in Golders Green Cemetery, London.
Bibliography
Gerard-Powell, Véronique. A Victorian Obsession. The Pérez Simón Collection at Leighton House Museum. London: Leighton House Museum, 2014. 169.
"John Melhuish Strudwick (1849-1937)." Christie's lot essay 5277, "Victorian Pictures & Drawings." https://www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-3109551
Kolsteren, Steven. "The Pre-Raphaelite Art of John Melhuish Strudwick (1849-1937)." The Journal of Pre-Raphaelite and Aesthetic Studies I:2 (Fall 1988): 1-16.
Shaw, George Bernard. "J. M. Strudwick." The Art Journal LIII (April 1891): 97-101. [Full text]
Created 26 September 2025