ATKINSON GRIMSHAW: MASTER OF MOONLIGHT AND MUCH MORE

Grimshaw was one of the very few genuinely self taught, working class artists, to emerge during the most productive period of British art, the reign of Queen Victoria 1837-1901. Overcoming the discouragements of having his paints and brushes burned by his mother, and inspired by success of Pre-Raphaelitism, his own meticulous rendering of landscapes lead to the development of his main subject – moonlight views. However his range is much wider than is generally known, and the story of his in Leeds, Scarborough and briefly, London, charts the relationship between an artist and his public: a patron once demanding assurance that he “never painted on the Sabbath!”