James Ward (artist)

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James Ward (23 October 1769 – 17 November 1859) was a painter, particularly of animals, and an engraver.

Born in London, Ward was influenced by many people, but his career is conventionally divided into two periods: until 1803, his single greatest influence was his brother in law George Morland; from that time, it was Rubens. From 1810 or so, Ward started to paint horses within landscapes; slightly later, he turned to very large-scale landscapes, of which Gordale Scar (Tate Gallery, London), completed in 1814 or 1815 and presenting the Gordale Scar (Yorkshire) as an example of the sublime is considered his masterpiece.

Ward devoted much of the period 1815-1821 to the painting of a gigantic work titled Waterloo Allegory (now lost); this neither was much praised nor brought in the revenue Ward had hoped for. The experience may have embittered him, and the deaths of his first wife and a daughter were among other tragedies. Like many artists of the time, Ward sought commissions from wealthy gentry of their favorite horses or their children. One such family that Ward painted and drew repeatedly, and whom he counted among his friends, were the Levett family of Staffordshire. One of Ward's best-known portraits was his "Theophilus Levett Hunting at Wychnor, Staffordshire" of 1817.^[1] (For the Levetts, see link to the Ward exhibit at the Yale Center for British Art.)^[2]

In 1830, Ward moved to Cheshunt (Hertfordshire) with his second wife, but he continued to work, particularly on religious themes. A stroke in 1855 ended his work, and he died in poverty.

James Ward was the paternal grandfather of Leslie Ward, the Vanity Fair caricaturist.

1 References
2 Further reading
3 References
4 External links
5 See also

[edit] References

[edit] Further reading

Beckett, Oliver. The Life and Work of James Ward, RA. Book Guild, 1995.
Farr, Dennis. James Ward 1769–1859. London: Arts Council, 1960.
Frankau, Julia. Eighteenth century artists and engravers: William Ward A.R.A., James Ward R.A.: Their Lives and Works. London: Macmillan, 1904.
Fussell, G. E. James Ward R.A., Animal Painter 1769–1859 and His England. London: Michael Joseph, 1974. ISBN 0-7181-1242-3
Grundy, Reginald. James Ward, R.A.: His Life and Works with a Catalogue of his Engravings and Pictures. London, 1909. (An extra number of The Connoisseur.)
Nygren, Edward J. James Ward's "Gordale Scar": An Essay in the Sublime. London: Tate, 1982. ISBN 0-905005-93-7