William (Sir) Beechey
(December 12, 1753 - January 28, 1839) |
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Anatomy, animal, costume, garden, interior, soldier, still life, landscape, portraiture Art Work
| Name: |
William (Sir) Beechey |
| Gender: |
Unknown |
| Place of Birth: |
Burford, Oxfordshire, England |
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| Birth: |
December 12, 1753 |
| Death: |
January 28, 1839 |
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| Past Auctions: |
Click Here |
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Quick Facts
| Known For: |
Anatomy, animal, costume, garden, interior, soldier, still life, landscape, portraiture |
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Biography
| Painter of portraits and occasional fancy pictures. He had one of the longest careers as an Academy exhibitor. He received some teaching from Zoffany and most of his portraits from 1776 to 1786 are smallscale pictures, sometimes full lengths or conversations, which owe a debt to Zoffany. The few so far identified are excellent likenesses and Beechey's portraits of this period tend to go under the names of other painters. After some years in London he moved to Norwich, where he was in good practice from 1782 to 1787, and started to paint portraits on the scale of life. He returned to London 1787 and soon had a very good practice; his account book survives for 1789 to part of 1791 (in 1789 small portraits for 5 guineas and portraits 30 by 25 ins. for 10 guineas which was raised in 1790 to 15 guineas). The most ambitious of these early pictures is the 'Oddie children1, 1789 (Raleigh, N.C., 80 guineas), which rivals Hoppner's (q.v.) contemporary child groups. Beechey and Hoppner (d.1810) remained fairly even rivals and both became ARA 1793, and both detested one another. They were soon eclipsed in smartness by the young Lawrence Hoppner was the flashier and appealed to the Prince of Wales; while Beechey was made portrait painter to Queen Charlotte in 1793. When Beechey raised his prices to 30 guineas a head (Farington Diary, 7 Jan. 1795) Opie justly said that his "pictures were of that mediocre quality as to taste and fashion, that they seemed only fit for sea captains and merchants" while Lawrence and Hoppner "had each of them as it were a portion of gentility in their manners of painting". For the rest of his life Beechey turned out a steady stream of fashionable portraits, which are sound likenesses and show considerable variety, but never reveal strength or nobility of character or intellectual distinction. The series of the 'Royal princesses' and the enormous 'The King reviewing the Dragoons1 (all in the royal collection) mark the moment of his greatest success. |
Samples of Work
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