Albert Joseph Moore

Albert Joseph Moore
Albert Joseph Moore, c. 1870
Born	4 September 1841 York, England
Died	25 September 1893 (1893-09-26) (aged 52) London, England
Nationality	British

Albert Joseph Moore (4 September 1841 – 25 September 1893) was an English painter, known for his depictions of languorous female figures set against the luxury and decadence of the classical world.

He was born at York on 4 September 1841, the thirteenth son and fourteenth child of well known portrait-painter William Moore and his second wife, Sarah Collingham. Several of his numerous brothers were educated as artists, including Henry Moore, R.A., the well-known sea painter. Albert Moore was educated at Archbishop Holgate's School, and also at St. Peter's School at York, receiving at the same time instruction in drawing and painting from his father. He made such progress that he gained a medal from the Department of Science and Art at Kensington in May 1853, before completing his twelfth year.

After his father's death in 1851, Moore owed much to the care and tuition of his brother, John Collingham Moore. In 1855, he came to London and attended the Kensington grammar school till 1858, when he became a student in the art school of the Royal Academy. He had already exhibited there in 1857, when he sent 'A Goldfinch' and 'A Woodcock.'

His early works shows the influence of Ruskin. In 1859 he was in France with the architect William Eden Nesfield. In 1861, he made a new venture with two sacred subjects, 'The Mother of Sisera looked out of a Window,' and 'Elijah running to Jezreel before Ahab's Chariot'. Meanwhile, Moore had given signs of the remarkable skill which he afterwards displayed as a decorative artist. The 1860s saw Moore designing tiles, wallpaper and stained glass for Morris, Marshall, Faulkner and Co., and working as an ecclesiastic and domestic mural painter. During this period his works began to take on a markedly neo-classical character, Moore making an extensive study of antique sculpture, particularly the Elgin marbles in the British Museum. His concern for decorative, color harmonies became apparent in his paintings of the mid 1860s onwards. His works, typically single female figures with formalized proportions, neo-classical drapery and floral accessories, established a major strand of the Aesthetic Movement.

About 1860 he painted a ceiling at Shipley, followed by another at Croxteth Park, Lancashire. He spent the winter of 1862–3 in Rome with his brother John Collingham Moore. It was here that he painted Elijah's Sacrifice, (1863) which shows the influence of Ford Madox Brown and Edward Armitage. In 1863 he executed a wall painting for the kitchen of Combe Abbey for the Earl of Craven. Moore was a regular exhibitor at the Grosvenor Gallery from 1877 onwards.