WILLIAM HUGGINS PAINTINGS FOR SALE & BIOGRAPHY
WILLIAM HUGGINS
British, 1820 - 1884
BIOGRAPHY
William Huggins was born in Liverpool in 1820. He received his initial instruction in drawing at the Mechanics Institute in that city at the age of fifteen he received a prize for his design Adam’s Vision of the Death of Abel. He also made many studies of the animals at the Liverpool zoological gardens - and it was for his paintings of animals that Huggins became best known. He was also a student at the life class of the Liverpool Academy, of which he became a full member in 1850. One of his important early works was Fight between the Eagle and the Serpent to illustrate a passage from Shelley's Revolt of Islam in which the reclining figure in the composition is his wife. Around the year 1845, Huggins painted several subjects from Milton's Una and the Lion, from Spenser's Faerie Queene, Enchantress and Nourmahal, and from Moore's Lalla Rookh.
In 1861 Huggins moved to Chester, and during his residence there painted many views of the cathedral and the city, such as Stones of Chester, or Ruins of St. Johns and Salmon Trap on the Dee. He left Chester in 1876 for Bettws-y-Coed, North Wales, with the purpose of specializing for a time in landscape painting, of which The Fairy Glen was exhibited at the Liverpool Exhibition in 1877. However, Huggins ended up returning to Chester, and died at Christleton, near that city, in February 1884.
Huggins was a regular exhibitor at the Royal Academy between 1842 and 1875, and also at the British Institution and the Royal Society of British Artists. He also contributed to exhibitions in Liverpool, Manchester, Dublin, Edinburgh, and Glasgow. His pictures of horses, cattle, poultry, and were his best and most characteristic work, good in drawing, and remarkable for brilliance of color - Tried Friends, purchased by the Liverpool corporation, is a good example of these qualities. Huggins had a distinctive painting technique, often using pale, transparent colors over a white background. Few artists have been more versatile; he not only drew portraits in chalk of many of his friends, but painted some large equestrian portraits in oil, a fine example of which is the portrait of Mr. T. Gorton, master of the Holcombe hunt, with a leash of hounds.
William Huggins was an accomplished musician and had an exceptional knowledge of other branches of art, such as ceramics and glass. Among his portraits is a self-portrait of 1841 and another of his elder brother, the artist Samuel Huggins. His sisters, Anna and Sarah Huggins, were also accomplished artists based in Liverpool.
Museum Collections
Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery, Blackburn
Grosvenor Museum, Chester
Harris Museum & Art Gallery, Preston
Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery, University of Leeds
Tate Britain, London
Victoria Gallery & Museum, Liverpool
Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool
Williamson Art Gallery & Museum, Birkenhead
Wolverhampton Art Gallery, Wolverhampton
Worcester College, University of Oxford
