William Powell Frith Posters Prints Fine Art

Life at the Seaside, Ramsgate Sands

Hope Giclee Print

Evening Prayer Giclee Print

The Novice Giclee Print

King Charles Ii of England's Last Sunday

Lord Foppington Relating His Adventurest

Derby Day Giclee Print

Sherry Sir? 1853

The Coquettish Dolly Varden

Derby Day Giclee Print

With the encouragement of his friend and fellow artist Augustus Leopold Egg, Frith continued with his paintings. While art critics disapproved of his paintings, his work was an enormous success with the public.

In 1854 Frith exhibited Life at the Seaside - Ramsgate Sands which was originally purchased by the art firm Lloyds but the Queen wished it for herself. Lloyds sold her the painting for the price they had paid while retaining the rights to engravings. In 1858, Frith exhibited Derby Day which required a protective railing in front of it with a policeman standing guard to protect the painting. Later five of Frith's works would receive the same barriers which was considered an honor. William Powell Frith died in 1909.

Museums: William Powell Frith may be found at the Tate Gallery, London and the National Portrait Gallery, London.

William Powell Frith was born in Aldfield, North Yorkshire, He had been encouraged to follow a career in art by his father, a hotel keeper in Harrogate. Frith relocated to London during 1835 where he started his formal art training with Sass's Academy prior to enrolling in the Royal Academy Schools. Frith began his vocation as a portrait artist and initially exhibited with the British Institution during 1838. During the 1840's, Frith oftentimes selected the themes for his paintings on the literary figures from the tales of authors such as Charles Dickens, whose portrait he was to paint, as well as Laurence Sterne.

Frith had been as well a member of The Clique, that also included renowned painter Richard Dadd. The primary subjects of his art was the enormously popular domestic themes created by Sir David Wilkie. Wilkie's celebrated art work The Chelsea Pensioners had been a urging to the conception of Frith's personal most notable pieces. After the example of painter David Wilkie, and pulling from the work of his acquaintance Dickens, Frith produced careful multiple figure pieces portraying a broad range of scenes from daily life noting Victorian class system. Such paintings portrayed every day people gathering together and interacting in public locations. In the painting titled Ramsgate Sands, Life at the Seaside he portrayed guests and entertainers at an ocean holiday resort. He succeeded this with the work titled The Derby Day, describing aspects amid a crowd at a race in Epsom Downs that had been founded on photo studies done by Robert Howlett. Derby Day piece had been purchased by Jacob Bell for the sum of £1,500. It had been so popular with the viewing public that it needed to be shielded by a specially set up rail while displayed with the Royal Academy of Arts. A different familiar art work was The Railway Station which is a view of the famous Paddington station. During 1865 Frith had been selected to create a painting of the Marriage of the Prince of Wales.

During Frith's artistic career he created two sets of 5 paintings apiece, narrating moral tales in the style of William Hogarth. They are the works titled the Road to Ruin, telling a story of the perils of gambling, as well as the Race for Wealth portraying foolhardy financial venture. He withdrew from the Royal Academy during 1890 however kept showing with them up to 1902.

Frith had been a conservative who made known his distaste to modern-day art evolutions in autobiographies and other writings. He had been also in confirmed opposition with the Pre-Raphaelites as well as those of the Aesthetic Movement, that he satirized with the piece A Private View at the Royal Academy, a painting that portrays Oscar Wilde conversing on art as Frith's admirers look on with disdain. Colleague traditionalist Lord Frederick Leighton can be seen in the piece, likewise are shown artist John Everett Millais as well as writer Anthony Trollope.

Frith own personal life had been a peculiar domestic existence. The artist was wed to Isabelle and having 12 children, when a mile down the road keeping a mistress named Mary Alford, at one time his ward with 7 additional children. This was quite a contrast to the virtuous family settings portrayed in art works such as Many Happy Returns of the Day. Frith wed Mary when Isabelle died during 1880. During his final years he painted numerous replicates of his famous paintings, in addition to more sexually abandoned pieces, like the nude which can be seen in the piece After the Bath. A familiar wit, his writings, most chiefly his talkative autobiography, have been quite popular.

- A difficult reply 1891
- A Game of Chess
- A Gypsy guitarist
- A Lady and her Maid in an Interior
- A London flower girl 1857
- A London flower girl 1884
- A maid with a flagon 1858
- A Man in Armour
- A Scene from molière's L'Avare 1876
- A sketch for Many happy returns of the day
- Abendliche Störenfriede
- After the Bath 1897
- An Incident in the Life of Lady Mary Wortley Montague 1872
- An Old Woman accused of Having Bewitched a Peasant Girl 1848
- And ne'er in madlier accents rose despair Byron
- At my window, Boulogne 1872
- Awaiting Tea
- Back to back 1867 34x25
- Beware 1899
- Blessing the Little Children 1874
- Choristers at Christmas 1889
- Christmas Choristers 1889
- Claude Duval
- Coming of Age in olden Times 1907
- Coming of Age in olden Times 1907
- Crossing Sweeper 1893
- Dame im gelben Kleid einen Brief haltend
- Dolly Varden 1843
- Dolly Varden 1863
- Dr.Johnson and Mrs. Siddons 1884
- Eavesdropping 1907
- Elegant Lady seated wearing a black Dress 1897
- For Better, For Worse 1881
- Green Parrot
- Head Study
- Henry VIII & Anne Boleyn Deer Shooting in Windsor Forest
- Hogarth before the Governor of Calais 1850
- Hogarth brought before the Governor of Calais as a Spy 1851
- Honeywood introducing the Bailiffs as his Friends 1850
- Hope
- Hope
- Hope/ Fear 1869
- Incident in the Life of Lady Mary Wortley Montague 1872
- Interior scene of family and clergy attending to a lady
- Isabelle Frith, reclining 1867
- Jane Powell, the Artist's Mother
- John Knox rebuking Mary Queen of Scots 1861
- John Knox rebuking Mary Queen of Scots 1867
- Juliet 1862
- King Henry and Ann Boleyn deer shooting in Windsor Forest 1903
- Lady Aurora Sydney 1862
- Lady in the Forest
- Lady, Seated Wearing a Black Dress on a Coastal Bank 1863
- Laughing Eye
- Little Dorrit 1859
- Lord Foppington Relates his Adventures 1871
- Lovers 1855
- Man in Armour
- Marriage of Falstaff
- Measuring Heights Scene from Oliver Goldsmith The Vicar of Wakefield 1863
- Meditation
- Mourning
- Mr Honeywell introduces the Bailiffs to Miss Richland as his friends 1850
- My first Attempt from Nature 1866
- Nächtliche englische Strassenansicht mit fröhlichen Kindern
- Nächtliche Strassenszene mit spielenden Kindern
- Neapolitan Flower Girl 1902
- Nell Gwynne at Drury Lane 1869
- New Shoes 1860
- Norah Creina 1846
- Portrait of a gentleman
- Portrait of a young Girl with a green Parasol
- Portrait of Anne Page 1853
- Portrait of Mary Freer
- Poverty and Wealth 1888
- Preparing to go out
- Private View 1882
- Sancho and Don Quixote 1850 88.9x119.4
- Scene from Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme 1862
- Scene from The Merry Wives of Windsor 1843
- Scene from Vicar of Wakefield
- Self Portrait 1884
- Sherry Sir? Did you ring, Sir? 1853
- Sketch for A Stage Coach adventure, Bagshot heath 1876
- Sketch for A stagecoach adventure in 1750, Bagshot Heath Fie!
- Sketch for Honeywood Introducing the Bailiffs as His Friends 1850
- Sleep 1872 86.5x111
- St Valentine's Day 1874 92.5x85
- Stage Coach Adventure in 1750
- Study for For Better, For Worse 1881
- Study for the Last Sunday of Charles II
- Study of a Cherub 1839 45x35
- Suprise 1884
- Sweet Dreams 1844
- Szene aus Dickens
- The Ambush
- The Ardour
- The ballad singer 1850
- The crossing Sweeper 1893
- The fair Captive 1865
- The Family Lawyer
- The flower girl
- The Flower Girl of Boulogne 1871
- The Flower Seller 1871
- The Gamekeeper's Daughter 1860
- The Gamekeeper's Daughter 1866
- The Gloves, Paris 1843
- The Keepsake 1865
- The Letter
- The Love Token
- The Lovers 23x21
- The New Frock
- The New Model 1892
- The Novice 1862 60x50
- The Old Soldier
- The Pet Fawn
- The Proposal 1898
- The Puritan's Daughter 1853
- The Recruiting Sergeant
- The rejected Poet
- The Rejected Suitor
- The Rivals 1856
- The Rose Picker
- The Signal 1853
- The Sleepy model 1862
- The Trysting Place 1884
- The Village Pastor
- The Witch's Trial 1848
- Two Strings to Her Bow
- When we devote our Youth to God 1852
- Window Wadman Lays Seige to my Uncle Toby 1903 - Young Lady Seated on a Country path in a Full-Length Dress and Bonnet
- Young Lady seated on a rocky Headland
- Young woman writing a letter 1874