ROBERT
WALKER-MACBETH R.A., R.W.S., R.I., R.E.
(1848 – 1910)
"Rainy
Day at Bisham"
Etching.
After a painting by Frederick Walker, published by Leggatts 1st
August 1887
Image
size 4 ¾" x 10" (120 x 245mm) Plate size 6
3/8" x 11 ½" (174 x 292mm).
Signed
in pencil IMAGE
Robert Walker-Macbeth was a painter of landscapes and genre in
oil and watercolour. He was also an
etcher. He was born in Glasgow, the son
of Norman Macbeth, portrait painter, and went to London when in his early
twenties. He worked as an illustrator
for The Graphic. He also worked in Lincolnshire and Somerset and was
much influenced by Frederick Walker and G.H. Mason. He was elected member of
the Royal Society of Painter Etchers and Engravers in 1880, Associate of the
Royal Academy in 1883, rising to full membership in 1903, Associate of the
Royal Watercolour Society in 1895, rising to full membership in 1901. He also
exhibited at Thomas Agnew and Sons Gallery, Baillie Gallery, Carfax and Co.
Gallery, Dowdeswell Gallery, the Fine Art Society, the Grosvenor Gallery,
Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts, Walker Art Gallery Liverpool, Leicester Gallery,
Manchester City Art Gallery, the New Gallery, the Royal Society of Portrait
Painters and the Royal Scottish Academy. He is best known as an etcher,
producing a long series after Velasquez and other masters as well as by
contemporaries. His realistic scenes of
country life, which he painted mostly in Lincolnshire or Somerset, are compared
by Caw to the novels of Thomas Hardy.
Examples of work by Robert Walker-Macbeth are in the Glasgow Art Gallery
and his painting "The Cast Shoe" was purchased by the Chantrey
Bequest in 1890.
