ARTIST: Basil Bradley (British, 1842 - 1904)
NAME: Landscape - On the Thames (titled on verso)
YEAR: 1882
MEDIUM: oil on canvas
CONDITION: Minor craquelure. Few minor scattered inpaintings (1" x 1" biggest). Wear to frame.
SIGHT SIZE: 20 x 36 inches / 50 x 91 cm
FRAME SIZE: 24 x 39 inches / 60 x 99 cm
SIGNATURE: lower right and on verso
CATEGORY: antique vintage painting
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SKU#: 117533
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BIOGRAPHY:
Basil Bradley was born in London in 1842, the second son of William and Eliza Bradley. His father, a native of Manchester born in 1801, was himself a noted portrait painter who had moved to London to gain more prestigious commissions amongst the wealthier classes. William and Eliza Bradley lived for a time on Fitzroy Square within the Fitzrovia district of London (Thomson 2007) but by the 1841 census, the year before Basil's birth, they had moved just around the corner to Charlotte Street. The family then moved back to Manchester sometime in the mid to late 1840s: the 1851census/birth records show that their daughters Blanche and Julia, were born in London in 1844 and 1845 respectively but that a third daughter, was born in Manchester around 1850.Basil Bradley's early family life must have been chaotic. At the 1851 census he was living at 10 Sagar Street, Cheetham, Manchester, with his four siblings, of whom the eldest, William, was then aged 12. The only other member of the household was a 19 years old house servant. The parents, by contrast, together with a house maid, formed a separate household at 3Albert Terrace, Broughton Lane, Salford. It is difficult to imagine how this came about. William Bradley, the father, died of typhoid in a room adjoining his studio on 4 July 1857.There was controversy over accounts of his death, with some claiming that his demise resulted from intemperate habits occasioned by his perceived lack of recognition for the fruits of his own artistic efforts.A more complete description of his life and the circumstances surrounding his death can be found in Susan Thomson's book Manchester's Victorian Art Scene and its Unrecognised Artists (Thomson 2007). Both Basil and William Bradley Jnr (see Appendix 3) became professional artists.Basil Bradley received little formal instruction in painting. Between 1859-1860, the year immediately before his time in Levens, Bradley studied at the Manchester School of Art (Clement and Hutton 1879), apparently under the tutelage of the landscape painter James Astbury Hammersley (1818-1867) (Anon 1892).By the time of the 1871 Census Basil Bradley was well-established closer to the London art scene, living at Lady Cross, Hambledon, Surrey with his sister Julia, an Artist pupil Frank Goodwin and a general servant. Earlier in 1866 he had shown a painting Evening at the Dudley Gallery, London at an exhibition designed to attract up and coming water-colourists (Anon 1866). Clearly, he had impressed as the following year (1867) he was elected an associate of the Society of Painters in Water Colours, often referred to as the Old Water Colour Society (Roget 1891, Holme 1905). His first exhibits as an associate, at the Society's exhibition of 1867, including Tilling the Ground and Spring in the Highlands, were particularly well received (Anon 1867a, b). A review of a series of portraits of tigers and their cubs exhibited in 1877 received effusive praise in The Art Journal. The paintings were described as .... about as admirable examples of fine draughtsmanship, skill in display of local colour, and felicity in reproducing individual textures, as we ever remember to have seen. The intensity of animal expression thrown into the individual portraits and the mirthfulness of character shown in the drawings are simply and truthfully equal to the finest display of those qualities in the best of Landseer's drawings (Pascoe 1877).Basil Bradley married Fanny Jemima Pattison at Marleybone, London in 1874, the year after his first painting, Victor and Vanquished, was accepted to hang at the Royal Academy Exhibition. The couple appear to have had no children. They seem to have moved address repeatedly during the succeeding years as shown in Table 1. It is difficult, however, to tell whether at any one time Bradley had both a residential and a studio address.Basil Bradley was a member of the Water-Colour Society of Liverpool and was elected a full member of the Society of Painters in Water-Colours in 1881 (Clement & Hutton 1879, Roget 1891, Holme 1905). Most of his work exhibited at major exhibitions in London was shown at the Society of Painters in Water-Colours (= The Old Water Colour Society), although 11 paintings were accepted for hanging at the Royal Academy and a single painting, When All was Young, was exhibited at the Royal Society of British Artists (up to 1893) (Graves, 1901, 1905, Johnson 1975). Details and reviews of these exhibitions were widely disseminated in both the London and provincial newspapers and periodicals (e.g. Anon 1875, Pascoe 1877).In addition, some of Bradley's paintings such, as May-Time and Forlorn Hope, featured in published collections of facsimile sketches designed to illustrate the best works in the major exhibitions (Blackburn 1882, 1893). Other prominent London venues at which Bradley exhibited were Lean's Gallery, Haymarket (Anon 1878c), The Grosvenor Gallery (Anon 1879), Kensington Town Hall (Anon 1882a), The Dudley Gallery (Anon 1866, 1884a) and Hampstead Art Society (Anon 1894, 1895a, 1897). Bradley also exhibited widely throughout the UK and beyond, including the Paris Exhibition of 1878 (Anon 1878a,b, Clement & Hutton 1879). An impressive list of exhibitions can be reconstructed from accounts in local newspapers throughout the UK. City venues include Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, Bristol, Derby, Nottingham, York, Aberdeen, Belfast and smaller towns include Southport and Alnwick in Northumberland.Basil Bradley died in Hendon, Middlesex in late 1904. The remaining works in his studio were auctioned by Christie, Manson and Woods on 6 February 1905. Interestingly, he is described as Basil Bradley RWS, deceased, late of Scarsdale Studios, Kensington (London), an additional address to those listed in Table 1 (Christie, Manson and Woods 1905). A few years before his death Basil Bradley sat for a water-colour portrait by Sir Hubert von Herkomer that was hung in the 1897 exhibition of the Royal Water-Colour Society (Baldry 1901).The current location of this painting, if it survives, remains unknown. Some of Basil Bradley's correspondence with David Croal Thomson, dating from 1884, survives in the California Archive. Towards the end of his career Basil Bradley is known to have painted using Cambridge Colours supplied by Madderton & Co. Ltd, originally of Loughton, Essex but also at 156 King's Road, Chelsea.Madderton's kept a detailed record of artists palettes between 1902 and 1904 and amongst the artists recorded was Basil Bradley (Madderton's Notes for Artists).In addition to his role as an artist Basil Bradley was also a graphic illustrator, supplying images for engravings of animals and rural scenes to a number of magazines, most notably Once a Week, Cassell's Family Magazine, The Graphic and the Illustrated London News (Anon 1880, White 1906).