FRANK DICKSEE, A.R.A.

FRANK DICKSEE, A.R.A.

Biographical sketch of Frank Dicksee

1884

Frederick George Stephens (1828-1907), author and editor

F. G. Stephens, Artists at Home, photographed by J. P. Mayall and reproduced in facsimile by phototengraving on copper plates; edited, with biographical notes and descriptions, by Frederick George Stephens (London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle and Rivington; New York: Appleton & Co., 1884), pp. 43-44.

Dicksee, Frank (1853-1928), English painter

May 1884

No copyright registered.

This text presents biographical data on Frank Dicksee's life, highlighting his accomplishments at a young age, in the Royal Academy and as an artist from a family of artists. Dicksee studied under his father, T. F. Dicksee, who was also an accomplished artist. Dicksee was the youngest of the artists chosen for Artists at Home. His most famous work, Harmony, was purchased by the Royal Academy.

The online edition of this work in the public domain, i.e., not protected by copyright, has been produced by the National Gallery of Art.

NGA_Dicksee.pdf

Department of Image Collections, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Omeka record contributed by Hilleary Gramling.

September 26, 2016

November 15, 2016

MR. F. DICKSEE, A.R.A.

MR. FRANK DICKSEE, a member of a family of artists, is the son of Mr. T. F. Dicksee, a well-known genre, historical, and portrait painter, who was a pupil of H. P. Briggs, R.A. The younger artist was born in London November 27, 1853; becoming a Student of the Royal Academy in 1871, he obtained a silver medal in the Antique School in 1872, and a gold medal for an historical picture in the Painting School in 1875, and having profited by the instructions given at that institution, as well as by his father’s example and counsel, made his débût as an artist in 1876, when he contributed to the Royal Academy the premiated work of the preceding year, being “Elijah confronting Ahab and Jezebel in Naboth’s Vineyard,” which attracted a considerable share of public attention.  In the same year the young painter sent to the Winter Exhibition of Cabinet Pictures in Oil at the Dudley Gallery, a landscape entitled “Afternoon near Shiplake.” At the former gallery in 1877 appeared “Harmony,” which not only obtained the extraordinary distinction of being purchased by the Council of the Royal Academy with part of the Chantrey Fund, one of the earliest instances of that nature, but it was honoured by being made the subject of a brilliant and effective etching by M. Charles Waltner. In 1879 Mr. Dicksee showed at the Academy his very popular “Evangeline;” in 1880, to the same place he sent two pictures, namely, an exhaustive group of three-quarters length figures called “The House Builders,” portraits of “Sir W. E., and the Hon. Lady Welby Gregory;” he also contributed “Benedicta,” a head, which Mr. S. Cousins has engraved.  In 1881 appeared “Miranda.” In 1882 Mr. Dicksee exhibited “A Love Story,” which was designed to illustrate Lord Tennyson’s lines: --

“In whispers, like the whispers of the leaves

  That tremble around a nightingale.”

In 1883 an unusually large illustration of the ancient parable of “The Wise and Foolish Virgins” was displayed at the Academy by the newly-elected Associate. It bore the title “Too Late,” and its motto was: --

“Too late, too late!  ye cannot enter now.”

             In March, 1881, the painter was, with four other artists, elected an A.R.A.; this five-fold election is supposed to have been an unprecedented event. His companions were Messrs. J. Brett, W. Burges, A. Gow, and H. Thornycroft.  Our subject had contributed only five pictures to the Academy.

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