Briton Rivière

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Briton Rivière
RA
1881 portrait by Philip Hermogenes Calderon
Born(1840-08-14)14 August 1840
London
Died20 April 1920(1920-04-20) (aged 79)
NationalityBritish
Known foranimal painting
St. George
lying down beside the slain dragon is a radical departure from the triumphant equestrian position in which this saint is traditionally depicted.

Briton Rivière

Royal Academy
, but devoted much of his life to animal paintings.

Biography

Briton's father,

William Rivière (1806–1876), was for some years drawing-master at Cheltenham College, and then an art teacher at the University of Oxford. Briton was educated at Cheltenham College and Oxford, where he took his degree in 1867. For his art training he was indebted almost entirely to his father.[2] His paternal uncle Henry Parsons Rivière (1811–1888) was also a noted watercolourist, exhibiting works at the Royal Watercolour Society, London and the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists
.

His first pictures appeared at the

Chums Boys Annual
, entitled "How I paint animals", Rivière explained some of the practicalities of painting both tame and wild animals:

I have always been a great lover of dogs but I have worked at them so much that I've grown tired of having them about me. However, you can never paint a dog unless you are fond of it. I never work from a dog without the assistance of a man who is well acquainted with animals ... Collies, I think, are the most restless dogs ...

fox terriers ... The only way to paint wild animals is to gradually accumulate a large number of studies and a great knowledge of the animal itself, before you can paint its picture ... I paint from dead animals as well as from live ones. I have had the body of a fine lioness in my studio ... I have done a great deal of work in the dissecting rooms at the Zoological Gardens from time to time.[3]

Rivière by J. P. Mayall from Artists at Home, published 1884, Department of Image Collections, National Gallery of Art Library, Washington, DC

Early in his career, Rivière made some mark as an illustrator, beginning with

Royal Academician in 1881, and received the degree of Doctor of Civil Law at Oxford in 1891.[2] He was narrowly defeated in the election for President of the Royal Academy in 1896. His wife, Mary Alice Rivière (née Dobell; 1844–1931) whom he married in 1867, was a painter and exhibited briefly at the Royal Academy of Arts in 1869–70. After his death she presented the British Museum with four of his drawings (and an etching "The king drinks"), which complements the dozens of prints made after his work housed there, especially by Frederick Stacpoole and William Henry Simmons. The artist and his wife had seven children; five sons and two daughters. One of the sons, Hugh Goldwin Rivière (1869–1956), became a portraitist; another son (Evelyn) married the eminent psychoanalyst and translator of Sigmund Freud known as Joan Riviere
.

Works

Paintings by Rivière are held by public institutions including the Tate,[4] Metropolitan Museum of Art,[5] Royal Holloway, University of London[6] and Chrysler Museum of Art.

These include:

  • Argus (1873)[7]
  • War Time (1874; Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia: 2011.9)
  • Sympathy (c.1878)
  • 'There's many a slip twixt the cup and the lip' (1881)[8]

References

  1. ^ Ann Lauren: Biography of Rivière
  2. ^ a b c  One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Riviere, Briton". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 23 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 387. This cites Sir Walter Armstrong, "Briton Riviere, R.A.: His Life and Work", Art Annual (1891).
  3. ^ "How I paint animals", Chums Boys Annual, No. 256, Vol. V, 4 August 1897
  4. ^ "Briton Riviere". Tate. Retrieved 1 May 2014.
  5. ^ "Pallas Athena and the Herdsman's Dogs". The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Retrieved 1 May 2014.
  6. ISBN 0-902194-08-9
    .
  7. ^ Samuel Armitage, his sale, Christie's, London, 13 June 1919, lot 155.
  8. ^ Frederick Smallfield, his sale, Christie's, London, 27 March 1896, lot 141.

Sources

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Briton Rivière.
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