Frank Cadogan Cowper, R.A.
Born(1877-10-16)16 October 1877
Wicken, Northamptonshire, England, United Kingdom
Died17 November 1958(1958-11-17) (aged 81)
Cirencester, Gloucestershire, England, United Kingdom
NationalityBritish
Alma materRoyal Academy Schools
Known forPainting
Notable workVanity (1907), The young Duchess (1917), La Belle Dame sans Merci (1926)
MovementPre-Raphaelite Romanticism
Parents
Relatives
AwardsRoyal Academician RWA Academician
Patron(s)Evelyn Waugh
Detail of Margaret, Henry VIII, and Princess Mary being visited by Erasmus, dated c. 1910

Frank Cadogan Cowper RA RWS RP RWA (16 October 1877 – 17 November 1958)[1] was an English painter and illustrator of portraits, historical and literary scenes, also described as "The Last Pre-Raphaelite".[2][3][4]

Life and work

Lucretia Borgia Reigns in the Vatican in the Absence of Pope Alexander VI, ca. 1910

Frank Cadogan Cowper was born in Wicken, Northamptonshire, the son of an author and early pioneer of coastal cruising in yachts, Frank Cowper, and grandson of Edward Cadogan, the Rector of Wicken.

Cadogan Cowper was educated at Cranleigh before going on to study art, first at St John's Wood Art School in 1896 and then at the Royal Academy Schools from 1897 to 1902.[5] He first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1899 and achieved critical acclaim two years later with his An Aristocrat Answering the Summons to Execution, Paris 1791 (1901). In 1902, Cadogan Cowper spent six months as an apprentice helping Edwin Austin Abbey RA complete a monumental canvas painting The Coronation of King Edward VII (now in the Royal Collection) before travelling to Italy to continue his studies.[6][7]

Cadogan Cowper worked in oils, tempera and watercolours, and simultaneously worked as a book illustrator, providing the illustrations for Sir Sidney Lee's The Imperial Shakespeare. He contributed to a mural in the Houses of Parliament in 1910-12 along with John Byam Liston Shaw, Ernest Board and Henry Arthur Payne.[8][9][10][11]

As art trends changed, Cadogan Cowper increasingly exhibited his portrait paintings and still continued to produce historical and literary works of art.[12][13]

Cadogan Cowper retired from London and moved to Gloucestershire. One of his paintings, The Ugly Duckling, was voted "their favourite painting" by visitors to the Cheltenham Art Gallery & Museum in 2005.[14]

The record price for a Cadogan Cowper painting at sale is £469,250 for Our Lady of the Fruits of the Earth (1917) at Christie's in London on 17 December, 2011.[15]

The National Gallery of London is staging an exhibition Saint Francis of Assisi which includes the work of Frank Cadogan Cowper until 30 July, 2023.[16][17]

In February 2024, the Musei di San Domenico in Forlì, Italy, will host the exhibition Pre-Raphaelites: A Modern Renaissance that will feature the work of Cadogan Cowper Vanity.[18]

Awards

Patron(s)

Studio Locations

  • 1902 (6 mos)》 Morgan Hall, Fairford, Gloucestershire
  • 1903 – 1905 》 1 Edwardes Square Studios, Kensington, London
  • 1905 – 1909 》 38 Barrow Hill Road, St John's Wood, N.W., London
  • 1909 – 1924 》 2 Edwardes Square Studios, Kensington, London
  • 1924 – 1940 》 3 Tite Street, SW3, London
  • 1940 – 1944 》 The Studio, Les Blanches, St Martin's, Guernsey
  • 1944 – 1951 》 Hughenden House, Fairford, Gloucestershire
  • 1951 – 1958 》 Summerton, Berkeley Road, Cirencester, Wiltshire


List of paintings (selection)

  • Rapunzel (Singing from the Tower) (1900)
  • Hamlet - The churchyard scene (1902)
  • Lady Clare and her lily-white doe (1902)
  • Francis of Assisi and the Heavenly Melody (1904) Exhibited at the National Gallery, London in 2023.
  • St Agnes in Prison Receiving from Heaven the 'Shining White Garment' (1905)
  • La Belle Dame sans Merci (1905 ) Exhibited at the Royal Society of Painters in Water Colours the same year; The International Fine Arts Exhibition, Rome, Italy in 1911.
  • Molly, Duchess of Nona (1905)
  • A Merciless Beauty (1906)
  • Mariana in the South (1906) Exhibited at the Royal Society of Painters in Water Colours the same year.
  • Vanity (1907) Diploma Work for the Royal Academy
  • Love Potion (1907) Exhibited at the Royal Society of Painters in Water Colours the same year.
  • How the Devil, Disguised (1907) Exhibited at the Royal Academy and Fine Arts Society the same year.
  • Venetian Ladies Listening to the Serenade (1909) Exhibited at the Royal Academy the same year.
  • Erasmus and Thomas More Visit the Children of Henry VII at Greenwich, 1499 (1910)
  • Lucretia Borgia Reigns in the Vatican in the Absence of Pope Alexander VI (1908–14)
  • The Love Letter (1911) Exhibited at the Royal Academy the same year.
  • Sir William Walter Carlile, 1st Baronet, OBE, DL, JP (1862–1950) (1913)
  • The Hon. Mrs. Hanbury-Tracy (1914) Exhibited at the Royal Academy the same year.
  • Faust's first sight of Marguerite (1915) Exhibited at the Royal Academy the same year.
  • Our Lady of the Fruits of the Earth (1917)
  • The Blue Bird (1918) Exhibited at the Royal Academy the same year
  • The Cathedral Scene from 'Faust': Margaret tormented by the Evil Spirit (1919)
  • Vanity (1919)
  • Fair Rosamund and Queen Eleanor (1920) Exhibited at the Royal Academy the same year.
  • Violet Miriam Nightingale Clay, Lady Vernon (1920)
  • Mrs E.H. Evans–Combe (1920)
  • Lady Gordon Taylor (1923) Private Collection
  • The Damozel of the Lake, called Nimue the Enchantress (Malory's "Le Morte d'Arthur") (1924)
  • Lady Hildebrand Harmsworth (1925) Exhibited at the Royal Academy the same year.
  • La Belle Dame sans Merci (1926) Exhibited at the Royal Academy the same year.
  • Margaret, Daughter of Montague Napier, Esq. (1926)
  • The Hon. Sackville-West (1927) Exhibited at the Royal Academy the same year.
  • Titania Sleeps (1928)
  • Sir Havilland De Sausmarez (1930) Exhibited at the Royal Academy the same year.
  • Mrs. Albert S. Kerry (1930) Exhibited at the Royal Academy the same year.
  • Pamela, Daughter of Lieut. Col. M.F. Halford (1930) Exhibited at the Royal Academy the same year.
  • Lilla, Daughter of E.M. Maclaurin, Esq. Married to N.H. Signor Sacra De Jordanow. (1930)
  • Miss Mona Sayer, Grand-daughter of Sir Walter Maude, KCIE CSI (1936)
  • The Fortune–Teller: "Beware of a Dark Lady" (1940)
  • La Belle Dame sans Merci (1946)
  • The Ugly Duckling (1950)
  • The Legend of Sir Perceval (1952–53)
  • The Four Queens Find Lancelot Sleeping (1954)
  • Elizabeth, Daughter of Major General F.V.B. Willis (1955) Exhibited at the Royal Academy the same year.
  • The Golden Bowl (1956) Exhibited at the Royal Academy the same year.
  • Self-Portrait (1957) Exhibited at the Royal Academy the same year.
  • The Patient Griselda
  • Portrait of Professor Rey
  • Lancelot slays the Caitiff Knight Sir Tarquin and rescues the fair lady and the knight in captivity
  • Eve

References

  1. ↑ "Obituary: Frank Cadogan Cowper", The Times, 20 November 1958.
  2. ↑ Frank Cadogan Cowper (British, 1877-1958) Archived 2008-01-30 at the Wayback Machine at artmagick.com (Accessed 7 July 2023).
  3. ↑ Waterman, Amanda B. (2008). Thesis. "Frank Cadogan Cowper: The Last Pre-Raphaelite". University of Washington Press.
  4. ↑ Braddock, Alan C. et al. (October 26, 2021). "Picture Ecology: Art and Ecocriticism in Planetary Perspective". Princeton University Art Museum. p. 71, 78. "Frank Cadogan Cowper (1877–1958) was called “the last of the Pre- Raphaelites” for his adherence to the group's principles decades after its dissolution; Cowper, who specialised in historical, literary, and religious subjects, was a fashionable artist at the beginning of the twentieth century—Evelyn Waugh was his major patron, and his paintings were favorably received at Royal Academy exhibitions in London, including by the influential art dealer Joseph Duveen." ISBN 9780691236018
  5. ↑ "RA Collection: Profile Frank Cadogan Cowper RA (1877–1958)". Retrieved 5 July 2023.
  6. ↑ Staff writer (1905). "Molly, Duchess of Nona painted by F. Cadogan Cowper". Biography. The Art Journal, London. pp.348–349. "Mr. F. Cadogan Cowper, whose ‘Molly’ was one of the admired drawings at the extraordinarily successful summer exhibition of the Old Water-Colour Society, has rapidly come to the fore. Still well under thirty, he got his earliest art training in the St. John’s Wood Schools, passing in 1897 to those of the Royal Academy, where for five years he studied. By invitation he was for six months in the studio of Mr. Abbey, and afterwards sojourned for a time in Italy. He has been an exhibitor at Burlington House since 1899, and in 1901 his picture of a Paris aristocrat answering to the summons of execution in 1793 was hung on the line, his ‘Hamlet’ (the churchyard scene) of the following year being bought by the Queensland Government for the Brisbane National Gallery. In the spring of 1904 he was elected an associate of the Old Water-Colour Society, and this year the Chantrey Bequest purchased his ‘St. Agnes in Prison.’ This ‘St. Agnes’ is among the works which cause him to be ranked as a prominent neo-Preraphaelite."
  7. ↑ Cox, Devon (2022). "The Street of Wonderful Possibilities—Whistler, Wilde and Sargent in Tite Street". Aurum Press Ltd., London, England. p. 264. "Cowper had succeeded in attracting Abbey's attention and was invited to Tite Street to assist with the completion of the coronation picture." ISBN 9780711274532
  8. ↑ "The Historian 156: The magazine of the Historical Association". 3 February 2023. Retrieved 6 July 2023. Cover image: 'The New Learning', c. 1910, by Frank Cadogan Cowper. Erasmus and Thomas More visit the children of Henry VII at Greenwich in 1499.
  9. ↑ "UK Parliament: Heritage Collections: Frank Cadogan Cowper". 1910. Retrieved 6 July 2023. Erasmus and Thomas More visit the children of King Henry VII at Greenwich, 1499, Mural by Frank Cadogan Cowper. Oil painting.
  10. ↑ Amanda B. Waterman, PhD (1 January 2019). "Parliamentary Murals of the East Corridor (1910): Constructing a British Identity in the Edwardian Era". Annual Meeting for the Western Conference for British Studies.
  11. ↑ By Natural-Colour Photography: Royal Academy Pictures (May 25, 1912). "Decorations in the Houses of Parliament — F. Cadogan Cowper, A.R.A." Supplement To The Illustrated London News.
  12. ↑ Marmor, Lail A. (May 2013). "Re-Presenting Rossetti: The Art of Frank Cadogan Cowper". University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee Press.
  13. ↑ Thiele, Madeleine Emerald (2012). "Dialogue and Descent; Frank Cadogan Cowper & John Everett Millais". University of Bristol. Retrieved 7 July 2023. .. but I would say that Frank Cadogan Cowper was the twentieth century keeper of a nineteenth century Avalon.
  14. ↑ "Ronald Summerfield Collection at Cheltenham Art Gallery and Museum". 11 September 2013. Retrieved 6 July 2023. A highlight of his collection and one which had great meaning for Ron Summerfield personally is the portrait by Frank Cadogan Cowper (1877-1958), the Ugly Duckling.
  15. ↑ Staff writer (9 December 2011). "World News: Auctioned art set to fetch £4.5m". Irish Independent. Retrieved 6 July 2023. Among other highlights were the original painting of the famous Christmas card design Our Lady of the Fruits of the Earth, by Frank Cadogan Cowper.
  16. ↑ "Saint Francis of Assisi-Exhibitions-National Gallery, London". Retrieved 5 July 2023.
  17. ↑ Dickie, Amanda C. (24 May 2023). "St Francis of Assisi at the National Gallery". ICN, London, UK. Retrieved 6 July 2023. and Pre-Raphaelite Frank Cadogan Cowper's luminous 'St Francis of Assisi and the Heavenly Melody', 1904, are yet more highlights.
  18. ↑ "Pre-Raphaelites: A Modern Renaissance". University of York, Dept. of History of Art. 17 April 2023. Retrieved 10 July 2023. Opening in February 2024 at the Musei di San Domenico in Forlì, near Bologna, is the exhibition Pre-Raphaelites: A Modern Renaissance. It will trace the profound impact of historical Italian art on the Pre-Raphaelite movement between the 1840s and 1920s by placing British works alongside their Italian prototypes.
  19. ↑ "The Royal Academy and "Prix de Rome" Competitions". The Magazine of Art. Marion Harry Spielmann, Petter and Gallpin. 1900. p. 183. Retrieved 24 July 2023.
  20. ↑ Cox, Devon (2022). "The Street of Wonderful Possibilities—Whistler, Wilde and Sargent in Tite Street". Aurum Press Ltd., London, England. pp.206–209, 248. "Fortunately for Cowper there were still patrons like the writer Evelyn Waugh and the Wills Family of Miserden Park, who ensured that his subject pictures found their way to appreciative homes." ISBN 9780711274532

Further reading

  • Bedoyere, Camilla de la (January 2006). "A Brief History of Art (The World's Greatest Art)". Flame Tree Publishing, London. pp. 254–256. ISBN 978-1844514458
  • Waterman, Amanda B. (2008). Thesis. "Frank Cadogan Cowper: The Last Pre-Raphaelite". University of Washington Press.
  • Thiele, Madeleine Emerald (2012). "Dialogue and Descent: Frank Cadogan Cowper & John Everett Millais". University of Bristol Press.
  • Marmor, Lail A. (May 2013). "Re-Presenting Rossetti: The Art of Frank Cadogan Cowper". Theses and Dissertations. 136. University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee Press.
  • Thiele, Madeleine Emerald (2016). "Frank Cadogan Cowper: Guarding the Pre-Raphaelite Lamp". Swindon Museum Journal. Issue 64.
  • Benezit, E. (31 October 2011). "Cowper, F. Cadogan". Benezit Dictionary of Artists. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
  • Serota, Nicholas; Upstone, Robert (July 1, 1996). "Treasures of British Art: Tate Gallery". Abbeville Press, New York. p. 221. ISBN 978-0789205414
  • P.G. Konody (January 1908). "The Academy's New Associate: The Work of Mr F. Cadogan Cowper, A.R.A." The Pall Mall Magazine. George Routledge & Sons Ltd. Vol. XLI. No. 177, pp. 20–32.
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