William Percy (portrait artist)
William Percy (1820–1903)[1] was a portrait artist of Manchester, England.
Percy was a founder of the Manchester Academy of Art in 1845. As he wrote later:
First - to institute a class for the study of the antique and the living model - the want of which has been long felt by the students and artists of this town as an insuperable bar to professional advancement. Secondly - to collect a library for reference, comprising history, poetry, archeology, optics, anatomy, chemistry, as applied to colour, architecture, sculpture, painting and engraving.[2]
In 1882, Percy's painting of poet Edwin Waugh was hung at the Manchester Art Gallery.[3]
At an exhibit of 51 of his portraits in 1885, The Manchester Literary Club remarked that, in his water colours of children, Percy was "almost without a rival among living painters."[4]
References
- ^ Artfact.com
- ^ Hitchon, Gil and Pat, Sam Bough, RSA, the Rivers in Bohemia, page 53, May 1998
- ^ Waugh, Edwin, Lancashire Sketches - Edited, with a Preface and Introduction, by George Milner, 1881, gerald-massey.org.uk
- ^ Papers of the Manchester Literary Club, Volume 11, by Manchester Literary Club, 1885, page 432