Frank O. Salisbury

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Francis O. Salisbury
Royal Academy
OccupationArtist
Spouse
Alice Maude Greenwood
​
​
(m. 1877; died 1951)​
Childrenat least 3

Francis Owen Salisbury

Chagall and Mondrian
.

Personal life

Salisbury was born on 18 December 1874 at Harpenden, Hertfordshire. His father was Henry Salisbury, a plumber and glazier, and his mother was Susan Hawes.[1] One of 11 children, Salisbury was such a delicate child that he was educated at home, in the main by his student teacher sister, Emilie.[1] He had only a few weeks formal schooling and began work by repairing bicycles at his father's Cycle Depot in Harpenden.

Uncertain as to his ability to find and maintain a job, the family determined that he be apprenticed, at the age of 15,

Heatherley's School of Art
three days a week to further a career in painting.

He then won a scholarship to the

Royal Academy Schools which he attended for five years and where he won two silver medals and two scholarships, including the Landseer scholarship which funded his to travel to Italy in 1896.[1] In due course he would have seventy exhibits accepted for the annual Royal Academy Summer Exhibitions, from 1899 until 1943, though he was never offered membership, which reportedly disappointed him very much.[1]

In 1901 he married Alice Maude (d. 1951), daughter of C. Colmer Greenwood, with whom he had several children, including twin daughters Monica and Sylvia.[1][2] His first Royal Academy exhibit was a portrait of Alice and he often painted pictures of their children.[1]

Frank and Alice Salisbury on board the S.S. Olympic in New York City, 1932

Salisbury died on 31 August 1962

neo-Tudor mansion he built,[3] in 1932, in Hampstead, London.[1] He is buried in a rather unassuming grave, with his baby daughter Elaine Maude and his wife, in St Nicholas Churchyard, Harpenden
.

Portraits

Franklin Delano Roosevelt
, 32nd President of the United States (1933–1945)
Clarence Winthrop Bowen, 1928, by Frank O. Salisbury, American Antiquarian Society

It is for portraiture that he is best known. His speed in producing portraits stemmed from his painting his own twin daughters every morning for an hour and his career began with child portraiture and his painting the Hertfordshire gentry and members of the Harpenden Methodist Church. He had a studio at his home, Sarum Chase.

Boy Cornwell in the Battle of Jutland then brought him to the notice of Royalty. Lord Wakefield then arranged for him to paint President Woodrow Wilson whilst he was in London, but Wilson departed for Paris and the opportunity was lost. It was to be John W. Davis
, American Ambassador to London, who encouraged Salisbury to go to the USA; Davis had met Salisbury at art receptions and had admired his child portraits.

Twenty-five members of the Royal

HM Queen Elizabeth II. In 1919 he painted a mural for the Royal Exchange, London
National Peace Thanksgiving Service on the steps of St Paul's Cathedral, 6 July 1919.

He painted Winston Churchill on more occasions than any other artist; the two iconic images of Churchill – The Siren Suit and Blood, Sweat and Tears are both Salisbury images. Another, the "Freedom Portrait", in private ownership in the United States, is the only one for which Churchill sat during World War II.[4] Its title refers to the fact that it commemorates Churchill receiving the Freedom of the City of London.[4] It is signed and erroneously dated 24 October 1944, but in fact was painted in a single short sitting on 24 November that year.[4] The work is now in a private collection.[4] Salisbury had also included Churchill in a larger, multi-figure work the previous year, The Presentation of the Freedom of the City to Winston Churchill in the Guildhall, London, 30 June 1943 (now in the Guildhall Art Gallery[5]), but on that occasion his request for a sitting was refused, and he worked from photographs and other paintings.[4]

Mayoral regalia was a ready made requisite for the Salisbury style with Councillor Sam Ryder (of Ryder Cup fame) as Mayor of St Albans being the most famous of his civic images.

Other significant portraits include those of

Sir Henry Wood
.

Salisbury was remarkably successful in the USA where he was deemed to have fulfilled the

Myron C. Taylor
.

Salisbury produced several self-portraits including depicting himself whilst painting the 1937 Coronation and his being Master Glazier in 1934.

Pageant

Salisbury's great forte was in his painting of over forty large canvases of historical and national events, a field in which he was virtually unchallenged until 1951. The two most significant of these are The Heart of Empire – the Jubilee Thanksgiving in

Queen Elizabeth
1937.

One of the great ironies of his art is that, although he was to all intents and purposes a pacifist, his introduction to Royalty, the aristocracy and overseas politicians came as a result of his war art, particularly his posthumous portraits of the fallen in the

War memorials followed on from this. During the Second World War he was required to paint The Signing of the Anglo-Soviet Treaty
and one of his most endearing images is The Briefing of an Air Squadron.

A matched pair of his pictures are in

John Carless V.C.[6]

His painting India's Homage to the Unknown Warrior in Westminster Abbey,[7] which hung in the Bengal Court of the British Empire Exhibition, Wembley, 1924, was presented to the India Office, as a gift from the artist when the exhibition closed. It is now in the British Library.[8] The scene, after the wedding of the Duke of York in 1923, shows "The four Indian orderly officers of the King, who that year were Sikhs, passed the grave of the Unknown Warrior in the Abbey, and spontaneously paid tribute. ... The orderly officers, the Dean and Chapter, and others in the painting sat for their portraits."[9]

Faith

Salisbury was a

British Council of Churches. However, the BCC sold the mansion and auctioned its contents. His range of portraits stretched from Billy Graham, to four Salvation Army Generals, to Pope Pius XII
.

Stained glass

But it was stained glass that remained his favourite, though not his most profitable, art form. One of his earliest pieces of stained glass is the east window (depicting Christ, knights and angels) of

St. Michael and All Angels Church, Bassett, Southampton.[10][11]

Thirty-four windows have been confirmed as being designed by him with the largest collections being at Wesley's Chapel in London, the former National Children's Home chapel in Harpenden, and the Forest Hill Methodist Church in London. All of his glass was installed in England with three notable exceptions in Medak Cathedral in India. He was elected Master of the Worshipful Company of Glaziers and Painters of Glass in 1933.

Images

The copyright of all of his paintings bar two is held by the Estate of Frank O. Salisbury. Authorised images appear in the books in the listing below. Significant collections of his work are held at the

National Portrait Gallery in London, New York Genealogical and Biographical Society, Royal Air Force Museum in London, Wesley's Chapel in London and the World Methodist Headquarters
in North Carolina.

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Maurice Bradshaw, 'Salisbury, Francis Owen (1874–1962)', rev. Charles Noble, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2005 accessed 17 July 2011
  2. ISBN 978-0-19-954089-1
    . Retrieved 18 December 2021.
  3. ^ a b "Francis Salisbury – Artist, Fine Art, Auction Records, Prices, Biography for Francis Owen Salisbury". AskArt. Retrieved 17 July 2011.
  4. ^
    Philip Mould & Company
    . Retrieved 15 June 2022.
  5. ArtUK
    . Retrieved 19 June 2022.
  6. ^
    Walsall Metropolitan Borough Council
    . Retrieved 19 June 2022.
  7. ^ "ACN | Noticias de Venezuela y el mundo". Archived from the original on 20 February 2017. Retrieved 14 February 2022.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  8. ^ Art UK (ref. F664)https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/indias-homage-to-the-tomb-of-the-unknown-warrior-in-westminster-abbey-191142
  9. ^ The Times, 12 December 1924
  10. ISBN 1-84114-213-1
    .
  11. ^ "Christ in Majesty". Hampshire Church Windows. Retrieved 26 November 2009.

Sources

  • Salisbury, Frank O. "Sarum Chase. " 1953. John Murray.
  • Barber, Benjamin Aquila. "The Art of Frank O. Salisbury. " [1936.] F. Lewis.
  • "The Studio of Frank O. Salisbury. SALISBURY 3210." Christie's, London. 1985.
  • McMurray, Nigel. "Frank O. Salisbury. Painter Laureate." 2003. Authorhouse.

External links

Media related to Frank O. Salisbury at Wikimedia Commons

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