Mr HENRY TANWORTH WELLS, R.A., who died on January 16th, was one of the most loyal supporters of the Academy. Born in 1828, he began exhibiting at the age of eighteen, for long exclusively as a miniature painter; not till 1861 did he contribute his first portrait in oils. Many well-known men and women have been limned by him, but his best-known picture is The Princess Victoria Receiving the News of her Accession, exhibited in 1880. Mr. Wells’ business capacities were great, and when some years ago Mr. Holman Hunt led an agitation for the reform of the R.A., he was an able defender of the status quo. During Lord Leighton's absence from ill-health, in 1895, he was Deputy-President. A man of undeviating integrity, an untiring student of literature and art, he will be missed in many circles. — Obituary in the Art Journal, 1903


Biographical Material

Works

Bibliography

"Mr Henry Tanworth Wells." Illustrated London News Vol. 48 (30 June 1866): 637-38. Internet Archive. Web. 11 July 2024.

Herrington, Katie J.T., ed. Victorian Artists and Their World, 1844-1861, as Reflected in the Papers of Joanna and George Boyce and Henry Wells. Woodbridge, Suffolk: The Boydell Press, 2024. [Review]

Lord, Peter. The Betws-y-Coed Artists' Colony 1844-1914: Clarence Whaite and the Welsh Art World. Aberystwyth: National Library of Wales, 1998 (with a special limited ed. in 2009).

Obituary. The Art Journal (1903): 96. Internet Archive. Web. 11 July 2024.


Created 11 July 2024