Ernest Radford

“ Bates died on 30 Jan. 1899 at his residence, 10 Hall Road, St. John's Wood, N.W. He was buried at Stevenage on 4 Feb. He was prevented by illness from completing with his own hands all that he had undertaken, but his friends superintended, after his death, the business of casting the latest of his undertakings. That a sculptor, owing so much to French teachers, should have become famous for works so purely and perfectly English in feeling is proof in itself that he was more than merely talented. ”

“ MARKS, HENRY STACY (1829–1898) , artist, the youngest of four children, was born on 13 Sept. 1829 in Great Portland Street, West, and baptised in All Souls', Langham Place. His father, Isaac Daniel Marks, after practising for a time as a solicitor in Bloomsbury, took to his father's business of a coach-builder in Langham Place. The artist's father was a devoted student of Shakespeare, which accounts for the subjects of some of his earliest paintings. The firm, Marks & Co., prospered at first, and it was understood that Henry should carry it on. ”

“ Though not altogether in sympathy with Marks's high spirits and humour, Ruskin would not have him repress it. 'Some very considerable part of the higher painter's gift in you,' he wrote to Marks, 'is handicapped by that particular faculty (i.e. humour) , which nevertheless, being manifestly an essential and inherent part of you, cannot itself be too earnestly developed.'
In 1874 an introduction to Hugh Lupus Grosvenor, first duke of Westminster [q. v. Suppl.] , resulted in commissions for the paintings in Eaton Hall, Cheshire. ”

“ Alfred Waterhouse, R.A. Settling in Paris, Bates took a studio of his own, and, acting on Dalou's suggestion, obtained private tuition from Rodin. Rodin's influence proved smaller than might have been expected. 'Comparing the "Socrates" modelled in London with the Virgil reliefs modelled in Paris we find in the latter a greater freedom and flexibility . . . but the peculiar gift of their author is as traceable in the "Socrates" as in the "Æneas" and "Dido," and it is not a gift in the use of which Rodin could do much to help him. His conceptions fall naturally into balance and rhythm. ”

“ His talent for drawing was shown very early, and when he left school he studied heraldry, so that he might be able to paint the crests and coats of arms on carriage doors and panels. Sufficient employment of this kind was quickly found for him in his father's business, but at the same time he attended evening classes at the well-known art school in Newman Street of James Mathews Leigh [q. v.] ”

“ HALSWELLE, KEELEY (1832–1891) , artist, son of David Halswelle, born at Richmond, Surrey, on 23 April 1832, came of a Somerset stock. At an early age he contributed drawings to the 'Illustrated London News,' and was long engaged in book illustration. Some work for Robert Chambers's 'Illustrated Shakespeare' took him to Edinburgh, where he found a very good friend in William Nelson, the publisher. ”

“ In 1887 appeared the three panels illustrating the story of Psyche, which proved, if one might judge by the demand for framed photographs, to be his most popular work; in 1889, 'Hounds in Leash,' an important group (in the round) of a young man restraining his boar-hounds ”

“ Men of the Time, 14th ed.; Dict. of British Artists, 1895; Scribner's Cyclopaedia of Painters and Paintings; Tate Collection Official Cat.; Ann. Reg. 1891, Chron. p. 159; Times, 14, 18, and 21 April 1891; private information. ”