Richard Ansdell

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Richard Ansdell (11 May 1815, Liverpool - 20 April 1885, Frimley) was an English painter who specialised in oil paintings of animal and sporting subjects.

He first exhibited at the Liverpool Academy in 1835, reaching its presidency in 1845, and resigning in 1852 in protest over an award of the £50 prize to William Holman Hunt for the then controversial Valentine Rescuing Sylvia from Proteus.

In 1841, he married Maria Romer.

He first achieved a reputation around Liverpool for commissions featuring landowners and their animals, and from the 1840s travelled in Northern England and Scotland painting hunting and agricultural scenes.

He first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1840, and was elected ARA in 1861 and RA in 1870. His best known works include Stag at Bay (1846), The Combat (1847), and Battle of the Standard (1848).

His subject matter was compared to that of Edwin Landseer, though critical opinion was that, though popular, his works lacked the latter's emotional impact. His reputation was as a hardworking but occasionally over-proud artist; for instance, he received no royal commissions after refusing to paint Queen Victoria's dogs unless they were brought to his studio.

During part of his career he lived at Lytham, in the borough of Fylde, where a district, Ansdell, is named after him.

Many of Richard Ansdell's works are owned by Fylde Borough Council, and from September 2007 a collection of these paintings will be on display in a permanent art gallery at a new Booths supermarket in Lytham.^[1]

[edit] References

• Judy Egerton, "Ansdell, Richard (1815–1885)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 accessed 18 June 2007

[edit] External links

• Richard Ansdell, online gallery, The Border Collie Museum
• Richard Ansdell website - run by his Great Great Grand Daughter, Biography, links, information.