Frank Algernon Stewart (1877-1945) - British artist

 

With thanks to Ognyan Hristov for discovering this amazing artist who was also a war correspondent during the Boer War.

Frank was born in Croydon, UK on 16th October 1977.  His parents were Ebernezer Stewart, a seed crusher, and his wife, Mary Ann Stewarat, nee Betts.    Educated in Hastings, Frank studied art under George Ward in Rochester, Fred Brown at the Slade, and Frank Calderon at the School of Animal Painting. Frank became a war artist for “The Illustrated London News” and in October 1899 went to Africa where he saw action at Colenso, Spin Kop, Monti Christo and the releif of Ladysmith during the Second Boer War.

Invalided home, Frank went to Paris in 1901, to study at the Académie Julian with Rodolphe Julian.  In 1903, he married Eliza Jane Brown in Havant, Hampshire.  The couple lived in Croydon but Eliza Jane died in December 1905.   

Sketch by Frank of General Buller riding in to greet General White outside the Town Hall in Ladysmith - 28 February 1900   Sketched in situ by Frank Algernon Stewart, the official Boer War artist of the London Illustrated News who came to South Africa in October 1899.

The Surrey Yeomanry on the Struma Valley Front, Salonika 1917-1918. The Evening Wireless - Komarjan Bridge. By Frank Algernon Stewart .

During the First World War, Frank served in the King Edward's Horse, Norfolk Yeomanry. Frank was a keen huntsman and his work was predominantly of hunting scenes. In later life he was forced to give up hunting as the result of an operation, but he continued to follow the hounds on foot, making sketches of hounds running.

By 1939, Frank had re-married and he and his wife, Muriel Winifred, lived in Cheltenham in Gloucestershire, where he died in June 1945. 

NOTE:  The Académie Julian was a private art school for painting and sculpture founded in Paris, France, in 1867 by French painter and teacher Rodolphe Julian (1839–1907) that was active from 1868 until 1968. The Academy remained famous for the number and quality of artists who attended during the great period of effervescence in the arts in the early twentieth century.  After 1968, the Academy integrated with ESAG Penninghen.

William Frank Calderon and Charles Edward Johnson, a landscape artist, started the School of Animal Painting at 54 Baker Street, London in April 1895 and Frank Calderon was the school’s Principal until 1916.

Percy Hague Jowett (1882–1955) was a British artist who became Principal of the Royal College of Art

Found by Ognyan Hristov

 Portrait by Peter Coker 

Percy was born in Halifax, Yorkshire, UK on 1st June 1882.  His parents were Smith Jowtt, a schoolmaster, and his wife, Lucinda Georgina Jowett, nee Hague, who was a schoolmistress.  Percy has a sister, Gertrude, who was born in 1885. 

He studied art at Leeds College of Art and London's Royal College of Art.

In September 1912, Percy married Enid Ledward, sister of the sculptor, Gilbert Ledward.

During the First World War, Percy served in the Royal Garrison Artillery, first as a Corporal then as a Second Lieutenant.

In 1927, Percy became head of Chelsea School of Art, and in 1935, principal of the Royal College of Art, succeeding William Rothenstein, and went on to give the sculptor Henry Moore his first job.  

During the Second World War, Percy served as a committee member with the War Artists' Advisory Committee. He retired from the RCA in 1948.

“England, Triptych” by Percy Jowett, First World War. circa 1918

Sources: Find my Past, Free BMD 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/385353788875799

Portrait of Howett - Percy Hague Jowett (1882–1955) by Peter Coker (1926–2004)

A triptych is an artwork made up of three pieces or panels. 

 

Alfred Basel (1876-1920) - Austrian artist and etcher

Alfred Basel was born on 23 March 18 in Vienna. His father was a factory owner. Alfred studied at the Wiener Kunstgewerbeschule under Felician von Myrbach between 1892 and 1898. 

He was a reserve officer during the First World War, serving with the rank of Oberleutnant in the Fourth Army on the Galician Front from March 1915. In the autumn of that year, Alfred became ill and was declared unfit for military service. By November 1915, he had been appointed to serve as a war artist serving the Kriegspressequartier. In 1916 he was on the Vistula, in the Carpathians, in Albania, on the Isonzo, and in the Ukraine. It was his artistic breakthrough.

In 1919, at the winter exhibition of the Wiener Künstlerhaus, Basel exhibited his work outside of the Kriegspressequartier for the first time. His treatment of military events was careful and accurate, and both stylistically and biographically he has many similarities to Oskar Laske. Like him, Basel avoids sensationalising or exaggerating, and favours crowds of small figures and a simplicity approaching photographic accuracy.

Alfred died on 24 January 1920 from the effects of a hunting accident in Dickenau, Türnitz, Lower Austria.