William Frederick Yeames
| William Frederick Yeames | |
|---|---|
Portrait by David Wilkie Wynfield
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| Born |
18 December 1835 Taganrog, Russia |
| Died | 3 May 1918 (aged 82) Teignmouth, Devon, England |
| Known for | Painting |
| Notable work |
Amy Robsart (1877) And When Did You Last See Your Father? (1878) |
William Frederick Yeames RA (18 December 1835 – 3 May 1918) was a British painter best known for his oil-on-canvas problem picture 'And When Did You Last See Your Father?' , which depicts the son of a Royalist being questioned by Parliamentarians during the English Civil War.
Yeames was born in Taganrog, Russia, the son of a British consul based in Russia. After the death of his father in 1842, Yeames was sent to school in Dresden where he began studying painting.
After a change in the fortunes of his family, they moved to London in 1848. Yeames learnt anatomy and composition from George Scharf and took art lessons from F. A. Westmacott. In 1852 he journeyed to Florence where he studied with Enrico Pollastrini and Raphael Buonajuti. During his time there he painted at the Life School at the Grand Ducal Academy, drawing from frescoes by Andrea del Sarto, Ghirlandaio and Gozzoli. Continuing on to Rome, he painted landscape studies and copied Old Masters, including the frescoes of Raphael in the Vatican.
Returning to London in 1859, he set up a studio in Park Place and, with Philip Hermogenes Calderon, Frederick Goodall and George Adolphus Storey, formed the loose association of artists known as the St John's Wood Clique. The group concentrated on subjects of a historical nature and narrative paintings in which the story was revealed by close study of the actions and expressions of the subjects. In Yeames's work this technique evolved into the genre known as the problem picture, in which the narrative of the image creates an unresolved dilemma or paradox for the viewer.
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