William Powell Frith

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William Powell Frith (1819-1909) was the most celebrated painter of modern-life subjects in mid-Victorian England and the most popular British artist of that time. Published to mark the bicentenary of his birth and in association with an exhibition at the Mercer Art Gallery, Harrogate, this volume of essays offers fresh perspectives on three of Frith's great panoramas of the Victorian scene – Life at the Seaside (Ramsgate Sands), The Derby Day and The Private View at the Royal Academy. They are introduced by a survey of contemporary and later responses to Frith's paintings. Further contributions explore important but hitherto neglected aspects of the artist's life, work and influence. These range from Frith's connections with Yorkshire (the county of his birth) and his circle of women friends to the key role played by the print trade in the popularisation of his images and their re-creation as tableaux on the London stage.