Arthur Mayger Hind

“ He also exhibited paintings at the Society of British Artists between 1841 and 1845. Two of his earliest published engravings are after Sir Edwin Landseer, and both are done in collaboration with other engravers, i.e. 'Peace' with T. L. Atkinson (1848) , and the 'Hunted Stag' (engraved under the title of the 'Mountain Torrent') with Thomas Landseer (1850) (both after pictures from the Vernon collection, now in the National Gallery of British Art) . During the last ten years of his life he again took up painting, sending five small subject pictures to the Royal Academy between 1894 and 1899. ”

“ The only painting preserved in a public gallery is a water-colour of ‘Lady Godiva’ in the National Gallery of New South Wales. The following are among the more important prints after his paintings: ‘The Canterbury Pilgrims assembled at the old Tabard Inn’ (mezzotint by C. E. Wagstaff, 1843) ”

“ He was one of the most prolific wood-engravers of the nineteenth century, engraving very largely after Fred Walker, J. E. Millais, Frederick Sandys, Richard Doyle, R. Ansdell, F. Barnard, and practically all famous illustrators from 1860 onwards. His own work is not always signed, and the signature 'Swain sc' must be taken to include the engraving of assistants working for the firm. ”

“ Returning to Canterbury after the company broke up, he again turned to coach-painting, and between this and occasional work as a scene-painter and draughtsman earned his living until he was twenty.
About 1823 he was invited by an uncle, a dissenting minister named Elvey, to London. He at once got permission to copy in the British Museum, and there made the acquaintance of Stephen Catterson Smith [q. v.] and George Richmond [q. v.] , then students like himself. ”

“ It includes a few portraits and figure studies, but is chiefly devoted to landscape. Here he was an artist of great truth and keenness of vision, and his best work shows a real sense of style, a true appreciation of the value of line, and a thorough command of an eminently virile technique. Most of his etchings, which number two hundred and fifty in all (Nos. 66 and 57 in Dr. Harrington's catalogue are in reality different states of a single plate) , were done during the years of his greatest professional activity. ”

“ After a, very slender school education Cooper was engaged in 1815 by a coach-builder, the uncle of a school friend named William Burgess, to learn and practise coach - painting. As a child he was seen by George Cattermole [q. v.] sketching the cathedral on his slate, and received from him a gift of the first pencils and paper that he used. His sketching of the cathedral was also noticed by Archbishop Manners Sutton, who encouraged him and gave him his first commissions for drawings. He was also helped and instructed by a scene-painter, Doyle, who had noticed him at his work ”

“ He received his early education in private schools in his native town, and wishing to become a sculptor was apprenticed at his own desire to a stone-mason, but an accident in the mason's yard terminated his apprenticeship, and all but ended his life before he was sixteen. ”

“ The main work of his life was in water-colour, in which he produced a large number of subjects illustrating literature (chiefly Chaucer, Spenser, and Shakespeare) , history, and daily life. He continued to the end even in his larger subjects to paint in the careful stippled manner that is more adapted to miniature portrait and illustration ”

“ In addition to the labours of a large private practice, he found time for much public work in relation to surgical science, serving on the juries of the International Exhibitions of 1851 and 1862, and contributing in this capacity in 1862 an exhaustive report, remarkable for its championship of the operation of ovariotomy. ”

“ New York (1890) , P. & D. Colnaghi (1901) , F. Keppel & Co., New York (1901, 1903, 1904, 1906, 1908–9) , Grolier Club, New York (1902) , at the Salon d'Automne. Paris (1907) , by Obach & Co., London (1907) , T. & R. Annan & Co., Glasgow (1910) , Ernest Brown & Phillips, Leicester Galleries (1911, Dr. H. N. Harrington's collection, with his valuable preface to the catalogue) .
As a critic and writer on art, Haden will be chiefly remembered as a pioneer of the scientific criticism of Rembrandt's etchings (of which he had a considerable collection) . ”

“ His last plate, a sketch of Woodcote Park, done on a pewter plate from the artist's bedroom window, is dated 1901.
Except for the twenty-five etchings which appeared in Paris under the title 'Études à l'eau-forte' in a portfolio with text by Philippe Burty (1865–6) , nearly all Haden's etcliings were put into commerce separately by the artist. Pieces of capital importance in the sale-room are the 'Thames Fishermen' (Harrington, No. 11) ; 'By-road in Tipperary' (ib. No. 30) ; the larger 'Shere Mill Pond' (ib. No. 38) ; 'Sunset in Ireland' (ib. No. 51) ; 'La Belle Anglaise' (ib. No. 90) ”

“ He also engraved pictures by Lady Butler, G. D. Leslie, Reynolds, Holman Hunt, Richard Ansdell, Sir Francis Grant, Sir J. W. Gordon, Landseer, Thomas Brooks, Frederick Goodall, Robert Collinson, Jerry Barrett, Alice Havers, Frederick Tayler, A. Bouvier, Philip R. Morris, and J. Sant. One of his most successful engravings is the 'Shadow of Death,' after Holman Hunt (1877) . It is stronger and less mechanical in its style than the majority of his plates. ”

“ In the latter part of the nineteenth century his wood-engravings were more generally printed from electrotypes, but those done for 'Punch' were invariably printed from the original wood-blocks. He died at Ealing on 25 Feb. ”

“ He was thrice married: (1) on 28 Sept. 1839 to Fanny Jemima (d. 1850) , daughter of the engraver Charles Heath [q. v.] , by whom he had three daughters, one of whom, Isabel Fanny (Mrs. G. H. Heywood) , has two daughters who are artists, Mrs. ”

“ The Times, 21 Dec. 1907; Lists of the Printsellers' Association; A. Graves, Dict. of Artists, 1895, and Royal Acad. Exhibitors; Cat. of Soc. of Brit. Artists; information supplied by his daughter, Mrs. ”