THE STAITHES ART CLUB: MEMBERS 1901-1907
1901
Joseph Richard BAGSHAWE RBA 1870 – 1909
Thomas BARRETT ARE NSA 1845 – 1924
John BOWMAN NSA 1872 – 1923
Harold Edgar (aka Edward) CONWAY 1872 – 1949*
Ernest DADE NEAC 1864 – 1935*
Arthur FRIEDENSON 1872 – 1955*
Rowland Henry HILL 1873 – 1952
Henry Silkstone HOPWOOD RSW 1860 – 1914*
John Spence INGALL 1850 – 1936*
Frederick William JACKSON NEAC RBA 1859 – 1918*
Robert JOBLING 1841 – 1923
Harold KNIGHT RA ROI RP PNSA 1874 – 1961*
Laura KNIGHT (nee Johnson) DBE RA RWS RE SWA NSA 1877 – 1970
Charles Hodge MACKIE RSA RSW 1862 – 1920
Frank Henry Algernon MASON RBA RI RSMA 1875 - 1965
Hannah MAYOR (nee Hoyland) 1871 – 1947
William Frederick MAYOR 1866 – 1916*
Ernest Higgins RIGG 1868 – 1947*
Mark Senior 1862 - 1927
Albert George STEVENS 1863 – 1925
1902
James William BOOTH RCA 1867 – 1953
Isa JOBLING (nee Thompson) 1851 – 1926*
Frederick Stuart RICHARDSON RSW RI ROI 1855 – 1934*
Hirst WALKER RBA 1868 – 1957
1903
Sidney Valentine GARDNER NSA 1869 – 1957
James WATSON 1851 – 1936
1904
Edward Enoch ANDERSON RBA 1879 – 1961
Owen BOWEN ROI PRCA 1873 – 1967
Lionel Townsend CRAWSHAW RWS 1864 – 1949*
John WRIGHT RE 1857 – 1933
1905
Paul PAUL RBA 1865 – 1937
Percy Morton TEASDALE RCA 1870 – 1961*
1906
Arthur James Wetherall BURGESS RI ROI 1879 – 1957
Leandro Ramon GARRIDO ROI 1868 – 1909*
Joseph Alfred TERRY RBA 1872 – 1939*
1907
John ATKINSON 1863 - 1924
Charles Cutts ELMHIRST 1872 – 1937
(37, of whom 15* trained in Paris).
OTHER SELECTED ARTISTS 1880 - 1910
Alfred ARMITAGE 1860 - 1931
Reginald ASPINWALL 1855 – 1921
Edwin BAGSHAW ANSA 1864 – 1941
Charles Edward BICKERTON 1876 – 1920
John Robert BILLINGTON 1881 – 1959
Edward Charles BOOTH 1831 – 1894
Kate Ernestine BOOTH 1868 - 1916
Frederick William BOOTY 1840 – 1924
John Francis BRANEGAN 1843 – 1909
Percy BROOKE 1869 – 1916
William BRYMNER RA(Canada) 1855 - 1925
Ethel Kate BURGESS 1876 – 1953
James CHARLES NEAC 1851 – 1906
William Henry CHARLTON 1846-1918
Andrew Charles COLLEY 1859 - 1910
Nelly ERICHSEN
1862-1918
Robert FARREN 1832 - 1912
William Gilbert FOSTER RBA 1855 - 1906
Alec Carruthers GOULD RBA 1870 – 1948
Ralph HEDLEY RBA 1848 – 1913
Thomas Marie Madawaska HEMY 1852-1937
Florence Adelina HESS 1891 – 1974
John William HOWEY 1873 - 1938
Nico W. JUNGMAN 1872 – 1935
James KERR-LAWSON 1862 – 1939
Alice KING (nee Sarah Alice Knowles) 1863 - 1945
William Joseph KING (formerly Kings) ARBSA 1858 – 1945
John William Buxton KNIGHT RBA RE 1842-1908
Sydney LEE RA NEAC RBA RE 1866 - 1949
Arthur LEGGE RBA 1859 – 1942
Sir Samuel
Henry William LLEWELLYN PRA RI RBA NEAC 1858-1941
Stuart LLOYD RBA 1858 – 1926
Harrington MANN RP NPS 1864 – 1937
Frederick Henry Alexander PARKER NEAC RBA 1861 – 1906
William PRATT 1855 – 1936
John Robertson REID RBA RI ROI 1851 - 1926
Frank ROUSSE (b. Charles Francis Rousse Short) 1871 – 1933
Oliver SHEPPARD RHA 1865 - 1941
Walter Henry SWEET 1889 - 1943
Frank Hillyard SWINSTEAD RBA 1862 – 1937
John Guttridge SYKES 1866 – 1941
Edward Richard TAYLOR RBSA 1838-1912
John TERRIS RI RSW 1865 – 1914
Sydney Lough THOMPSON 1877 - 1973
Hon. Duff TOLLEMACHE 1859 - 1936
Arthur TUCKER RBA 1864 - 1929
Edward TUCKER (aka Arden) 1847 - 1910
William Henry WILKINSON 1856 - 1925
John Terrick WILLIAMS RA RI ROI RBA 1860
-1936
Vincent Philip YGLESIAS RBA 1845 – 1911 (50)
With very many thanks to George Bednar for his help in compiling these lists.
The Staithes Group
"It must be nearly twenty-five years since there was formed in the little
village of Staithes
a Society of Painters who called themselves the "Staithes Group".
Even at this distance of time details are getting confused as to who were actually members
and who were merely friends of members."
[Whitby Gazette, 30th July 1926, Art in the Whitby District]
NEW 2026 RESEARCH BY LESLEY CHURCH
John Wright (1857-1933) and Louise Wood Wright (1865-1946)
Artists
By Lesley Church
July 2026
John Wright was an artist who created atmospheric etchings with an air of mystery, luminous paintings, and occasionally portraits. His works often include trees, for example: Three Trees:Taormina, Cedars at Kew, Mulberry Trees; water:The Dark Pool, The Stream, The Canal at Sluys; bridges: The Rialto, The Little Viaduct, Three Bridges: Venice. Venice is the subject of many of his etchings, as is Taormina, where he lived in Sicily, and the places he visited in France, Belgium, Spain, and, later in life, the West Indies. Some of his first works, however, are those created when he lived in Robin Hood’s Bay, in Yorkshire, in the first years of the 1900s, when he was a member of the Staithes Art Club. Titles include Robin Hood’s Bay; The Beck: Robin Hood’s Bay; The Wayfoot: Robin Hood’s Bay; A Yorkshire Moor; A Yorkshire Gorge; Rigg Mill. His portraits include the charming Hautboy, showing a young woman and an old man in profile, the simple etching of a young girl Maria Castelli, and a portrait of the American portrait artist Cecilia Beaux.
Among the art galleries which hold works by John Wright are the British Museum (11 prints), and the V & A (two water colours and 11 prints); Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts holds seven of his works – one the gift of Mrs Charles Stewart Wurts in 1926, and the others the gift of the Philadelphia Water Color Club in 1941; Harvard Art Museums: Pool in Woods; Landscape; L’Abside, Moret-sur-Loing; Boston Museum of Fine Arts: Robin Hood’s Bay; The Rialto; National Gallery of Canada: The Silent Pool; Pannett Art Gallery, Whitby, holds three works: A Yorkshire Gorge; The Canal at Sluys; Portrait of Maria Castelli.
John exhibited his work at the Alpine Club Gallery; Beaux Arts; Baillie Gallery; Fine Art Society; Grosvenor Gallery, Royal Academy; Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts; Royal Society of Painters-Etchers and Engravers; Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolour; Ridley Art Gallery; Royal Scottish Academy; Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, Anderson’s Gallery, Whitby (Staithes Art Club exhibition in 1904), and the Philadelphia Water Color Club.
The Dictionary of British Artists 1880-19401 has two entries for John Wright, one with a long list of galleries where his works were exhibited and providing addresses in Kent, Robin Hood’s Bay and London and the other, much shorter, entry gives the address Villa Prima Cruci, Taormina. Both entries relate to the same artist. John Wright lived in Kent in the 1890s, in Robin Hood’s Bay in the first years of the 1900s, first lived in Taormina, Sicily in 1907, lived in London from 1913 (and was in Taormina again in 1921), and finally moved back to Kent in 1933. In addition to these addresses, John Wright travelled widely in Europe as his etchings and paintings testify. He worked in Argentina before making art his career, and after his marriage made several visits to the United States and Canada, and his last major exhibition in London in 1929 was of his recent paintings and etchings of the West Indies.
Beginnings
John Wright was born in Harrogate, Yorkshire, in 1857. His father, also John, was a coach builder, employing 40 men in 1861. The family – father John, mother Mary Ellen (née Bowes), John and his sisters Mary and Catherine were living at West Park, Harrogate. In the 1871 census, John appears to be boarding at Harrogate College for Boys on Ripon Road. In 1883, the family coachbuilding firm of C Wright & Sons went into liquidation. John Wright’s father died in 1887 at his daughter’s residence in the Boulevard Sainte-Beuve, Boulogne-sur-Mer2. In 1892, John and Mary’s youngest son, Charles, was first mate on board the Ferndale which was carrying coal from Newcastle, New South Wales, to Portland Oregon. Charles was among the twenty crew members drowned when the ship was wrecked in Gray’s Harbour on the Pacific coast of Washington.3
After leaving school, John was apprenticed to a broker’s office in Rumford Street, Liverpool – a position that had considerable prospects but it did not suit John. He decided to try art instead and went to Antwerp to study drawing. Discovering after a while that art did not pay well, he found work, through a friend, building railways in Argentina where he had a couple of narrow escapes – one when he was lost on the salt plains and was nearly dead from sunstroke before a rescue expedition found him, and another when the construction train on which he was travelling was crushed. When he returned to England just before the outbreak of a revolution in Argentina which he describes as “the most serious and the last”, he set about making a career from his art.4 He was certainly back in England and exhibiting his paintings and etchings by the mid-1890s.
The Artist
John studied art at Antwerp Academy. The choice of Antwerp may have related to a contact he had there. His brother-in-law, Robert Stephen Byron, who was a solicitor in Harrogate, was born in Antwerp where his father, Rev. Robert Byron, was chaplain to the English community for 32 years until his death in 1884.5
John became an associate member of the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers (RE) in 1899, and a full member in 1917. In 1894-1900, addresses given in exhibition catalogues show that he was living in Chipstead, a village to the west of the town of Sevenoaks in Kent, and, in 1895, he exhibited for the first time at the Royal Academy in London. The painting exhibited was Chipstead. In January 1900, he exhibited a large number of his works at an exhibition at the Lime Tree Studio in Sevenoaks – the first venture of its kind in the town. He continued to exhibit at the Lime Tree Studio, even after he moved to Robin Hood’s Bay, exhibiting in 1901, 1904 and in 1906. In 1913, the winner of the fourth prize (worth 12 shillings) in the Sevenoaks Art Union draw, chose John’s Giudecca Canal (priced at £12.12s) as her prize adding £12 to her prize money to buy it. In June 1915, an Anglo-Belgia exhibition was held in Sevenoaks, organised by the Arts and Crafts Society. John exhibited Canal at Sluys, and The Bridge.6
By 1901, John, described as an artist in the 1901 census, was living with his widowed mother at Fisherhead, Robin Hood’s Bay. In the Royal Academy catalogues for 1903-1906, his address is Robin Hood’s Bay, although the works he exhibits in those years at the Royal Academy, at the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers and Engravers, and at Whitby in 1904, suggest he was also spending time travelling in Europe: Belgium, France, Holland and Italy. While in Robin Hood’s Bay, John became a member of the Staithes Art Club but exhibited his work in only the 1904 exhibition which was held at Anderson’s Gallery, Whitby. John exhibited one painting - Near Robin Hood’s Bay (priced at £20) – and six prints: The Way Foot, Robin Hood’s Bay ; Canal des Baudets, Bruges; Canal at Sluys (Coll. Pannett Art Gallery, Whitby); The Watchman at Knole; Robin Hood’s Bay; Grasse.
John exhibited etchings at the Venice Biennale in 1905 and 1907.7 In 1905 he exhibited Lo Stagno Oscuro and Il Ruscello, and in 1907 Ponte di Rialto. Composer Gian Francesco Malipiero was inspired by the latter to compose a short piece for piano called Una Processione a Mezzanotte (da un’acquaforte di John Wright). The King of Italy may have bought one, or two, of his etchings.8
Louise Wood Wright (1865-1946)
On 20 October 1906, John married Marie Louise Wood in Geneva, Switzerland. Louise was an American artist, born in Philadelphia in 1865. In 1870 she was living in Philadelphia with her parents, George, an ironbroker, and Caroline, and sisters Mary and Julia, and in 1880 in Queen’s, New York, with parents and sisters Julia and Ellen. Louise studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, at the Académie Julian in Paris and with Whistler, and also with F W Jackson in England.9
Louise in Paris
Louise was living at 3 Rue de Bagneux, Paris in 1901 and 216 Boulevard Raspail, Paris, in 1902. In 1901, she exhibited an ‘etude’ of a boy and two girls by a river in the American Women’s Art Association exhibition at the American Girls’ Club in the Rue de Chevreuse – one of the show’s most luminous works10– and a miniature of Mlle W. She also exhibited Femme Serieuse at the Salon de la Société des Artistes Francais in 1901. In 1902, she exhibited a watercolour of an old woman at the AWAA exhibition, three works at the Salon des Beaux Arts: two Paysage (etude), and Raccommodeuse, and with her Paris address, she also exhibited A Little Japanese – Portrait, and The Solitude of Old Age at the American Water Color Society. By 1903, she was back in Philadelphia.
Yorkshire Paintings
It seems likely that between leaving Paris and arriving in Philadelphia, Louise was in Yorkshire studying with Frederick W. Jackson who was a founder member of the Staithes Art Group and lived in Hinderwell, near Whitby. On her return to America, Louise exhibits paintings of Yorkshire. In 1903, she exhibited A Fisherman’s Cottage in the American Water Color Society’s exhibition, A Fisherman’s Cottage and A Yorkshire Cornfield in the Philadelphia Water Color Club’s exhibition, and at the New York Water Color Club she exhibited The Cottage Steps, Yorkshire. In1904, at the American Water Color Society, she exhibited Village on the Cliff, at the Philadelphia Water Color Club she exhibited The Cottage Steps, Yorkshire, and A Crowded Garden, Yorkshire andat the St Louis world fair (Louisiana Purchase Exposition), she exhibited A Harvest Field, England. In 1905, at the Philadelphia Water Color Club, she exhibited Among the Cliffs of Yorkshire.11. It seems likely that John and Louise met for the first time in Yorkshire.
Marriage
In 1906 (according to an exhibition catalogue address) Louise was in London. But on 25 September 1906 when she applied for a passport needed for her marriage, she was “temporarily sojourning” in Venice and applied for the passport via the Legation of the United States at Venice. Her application states that she had left the United States on 19 December 1905. The application gives a description of Louise: 5ft 2in., high and broad forehead, straight nose, light brown hair, brown eyes, firm chin, medium mouth, face round.
The marriage register12 provides family details for John and Louise: father’s name and occupation, mother’s maiden name, and place of residence (John’s mother was still living in Robin Hood’s Bay). John’s age is recorded as 46 (incorrectly) and Louise’s as 41. Louise’s address was 3 Rue de Lyon, Geneva, and John was staying at the Hotel Suisse.
Taormina, Sicily
In 1907, John and Louise were in Taormina, Sicily, which was to become a second home for them over the ensuing years. John’s address is given in the catalogue of the 1907 exhibition at the Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts as Villa Prima Cruci, Taormina. He exhibited two works – The Redentore and The Rialto. In the same year with the same address, he exhibited The Stream at the Royal Scottish Academy.
John and Louise travelled on the Canopic from Genoa arriving in Boston, USA, on 30 September 1907. Their last residence is given on the ship’s list as Taormina, and their destination was Pennsylvania. John is described as 49 years old, 5’6” with grey hair and grey eyes, Both John and Louise are described as artists.
In 1907, John and Louise exhibited at the Philadelphia Water Color Club’s exhibition. John exhibited 12 works: A Girl of Verona; The Rialto; Taormina; Three Trees:Taormina; The Redentore: Venice; Greek Theatre:Taormina; San Pancrazio:Taormina; Robin Hood’s Bay; Natale; A Yorkshire Moor; The Pond; The Hautboy. Louise exhibited one work: St Mark’s Venice. Their address in the catalogue was Taormina, Sicily.
Over the following years, they continued to exhibit in the Water Color Club’s exhibitions. John exhibited in 1909,1913, 1914, 1919, and 1924, and Louise in 1909, 1912, 1914, and 1926.
Messina Earthquake December 1908
John and Louise were back in Taormina when the devastating Messina earthquake occurred in December 1908. The Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer (11 Jan. 1909) includes a letter from the Rev. Alfred Crompton of Hinderwell, Yorkshire, about a letter he had received from Taormina from “a great friend of mine, Mr John Wright A.R.E., a well-known Yorkshire artist and etcher, late of Robin Hood’s Bay, and who with his wife Louise Wood Wright resides there”. He quotes a part of John’s letter:
“I hope you have gathered from the papers that we are all safe at Taormina. We felt the shock very badly but no damage was done. The people are still terrified…Some of us have spent the last six days and nights at the station, relieving the wounded and the refugees, who are coming through in thousands. We have arranged committees of all sorts to work the hospital and feed and clothe the refugees lodged in Taormina. The hospital is full and there are nearly a hundred refugees. If you could collect a little money among your friends…My wife and sister-in-law are very tired: Louise is president and manager of the clothing. The earth is still trembling most uncomfortably.”
London: World War I
It seems likely that between 1907 and 1912, John and Louise were based in Taormina but also travelling on the continent. John does not exhibit at the Royal Academy during those years but does exhibit at the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers and Engravers: including Greek Theatre, Taormina; Pancrazio, Taormina; The Gondola; Castello, Taormina; L’Abside, Moret; The Bridge at Alcantara.
In 1912, Louise travelled from Messina and arrived in New York on 5 June. She gave her last residence as Taormina and her husband’s address as Robin Hood’s Bay which suggests he had returned to England to visit his mother who was still living there. In 1911, Mary Wright was at Thorpe, Robin Hood’s Bay, and she died in Whitby in 1914. Louise was returning to Pennsylvania to visit her married sister, Ellen, Mrs John Gordon, in Chambersberg.
In 1913, John and Louise were back in England living at 2 Cheltenham Terrace, Chelsea. John exhibited at the Royal Academy that year, and, also, an exhibition of John’s etchings and Louise’s watercolours was held at the 21 Gallery, Adelphi, which was reviewed in the London Evening Standard (17 Nov 1913). The reviewer is unimpressed by Louise’s work, but writes that John’s etchings “are big in feeling, pure in style and direct and forcible in execution”. Earlier in the year, John’s exhibition at the Baillie Gallery had been reviewed in various papers including the Whitby Gazette (21 Feb 1913) : “Almost without exception the water-colour drawings may be truthfully described as poems”. Among the works displayed – France, Italy, Spain – was ”old friend” Robin Hood’s Bay. The Newcastle Journal (17 Feb 1913) considers John “primarily a colourist possessed of an individual outlook and a good technique” and praises, in particular, his water colour of Asolo (Italy) at evening.
The onset of World War I may have meant that they curtailed their travelling abroad but it seems they did spend time in Venice. John’s Bazzetto: Venice in Wartime was exhibited in 1919 in the Philadelphia Water Color Club’s exhibition at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Both exhibited in the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco 1915: John: Sicilian Landscape, and Louise: In Dorsetshire and Corfe Castle, Dorset.
During the war, John was contacted by the Ministry of Information regarding a possible scheme for commissioning etchings. Permits were obtained to allow him to sketch in the areas of Warrington Crescent and Whetstone in London. The scheme did not materialise and John’s etchings could not be published during the war because they might give the enemy encouragement. After the war, John presented copies of two works to the Imperial War Museum: Warrington Crescent after the Air Raid of 7 March 1918, and Harry Vardon’s House, Whetstone. Warrington Crescent was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1919 and also at the IWM’s exhibition of war paintings held at the Royal Academy that year (and at the Royal Scottish Academy as mentioned above).
In 1918 Louise again visited her sister in Chambersberg, sailing from Liverpool to New York, and giving her husband’s address as 2 Cheltenham Terrace.
John continued to exhibit at the Royal Academy in 1915-21, 1923-1924, 1928. In 1921, no home address is given – instead “Care of Chelsea Art Stores”. It is 1921 when a John Wright and his wife are mentioned in D H Lawrence’s letters as having returned to their old house in Taormina.
Back to Taormina
My evidence for John and Louise’s return to Taormina rests on the letters of author D H Lawrence who lived in Taormina from March 1920-February 1922. While in Taormina, Lawrence finished his novel The Lost Girl, began Mr Noon, wrote Sea and Sardinia after a trip to Sardinia with his wife Frieda, and wrote several poems and short stories.
There are mentions of the Wrights in three letters written by Lawrence.13 The first reference is in a letter to Mary Cannan (12 February [1921]), the second in a letter to Beatrice Bland (25 February 1921), and the third in a letter to Marie Hubrecht (20 March 1921). In these letters, Lawrence mentions that Mr and Mrs John Wright have returned to their house near S. Domenico in the Piazzetta Garibaldi, and that Mrs Wright has an arts and crafts shop in Cheyne Row (in London).Lawrence describes the couple as old and fat but “nice and funny”. Millicent Beveridge, also an artist, was staying with the Wrights, and, in March 1921, was painting Lawrence’s portrait.
Taormina had been a second home to John and Louise since their marriage. In London, they lived in Cheltenham Terrace close to Cheyne Row. I have not been able to ascertain that Louise had an arts and crafts shop in Cheyne Row but I have found, in a 1920 London directory, a Mrs John Wright who had a “curiosity” shop in Cheyne Walk. An internet source also provides information that Mrs John Wright had a shop at 44 Cheyne Walk between 1918-1920.14
Millicent Beveridge had lived in Paris for many years before World War I. Her family home was in Scotland, but she also lived in London. When in London, Millicent lived in Rossetti Garden Mansions, Flood Street, Chelsea. Millicent and the Wrights could easily have met in Chelsea through their shared art interests, or through the Arts and Crafts shop.
Later Life: Travels in the United States, Canada and the West Indies
When John next exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1923, his address was 7 Cheltenham Terrace. Louise, now grey-haired according to the description on the ship’s list, again visits Pennsylvania, arriving in New York on 13 October 1924, but this time staying with a cousin, Charles Stewart Wurts, in Philadelphia. She gives John’s address as 7 Cheltenham Terrace.
Between 1925-27 John and Louise spent time in the United States, Canada, and the West Indies.
In June 1925, they arrive together in Nova Scotia to visit Stewart Wurts in Chester for three months. Both had visited Canada before - John from July-October 1924 and Louise from July-August 1921 - and on those previous occasions had stayed in Chester.
The West Indies appear to be their next port of call. I have not found evidence of their arrival in the West Indies but, in April 1926, John sails on the SS Chignecto, from Demerara (Guyana) to St John, New Brunswick, heading again for Chester, Nova Scotia. He gives his wife’s address as Kingstown, St Vincent, and states that he had previously spent six months in Chester in 1924 and 1925. He seems to have returned to the West Indies after his visit to Chester as he is on the Domenica from St Kitts to New York in May 1927.
In 1928, back in London, John and Louise were living at 21A West Cromwell Road, when John exhibited his dry point Cedars at Kew at the Royal Academy. In January 1929, his watercolours and etchings of the West Indies were exhibited at the Beaux Arts Gallery in Bruton Place. There were paintings of Nevis, St Vincent and St Kitts which the London Daily Chronicle (8 Jan 1929), described as flaming with colour. The V & A has a watercolour entitled Almond Grove, Island of St Christopher or St Kitts, West Indies presented to the museum by Louise Wood Wright.
Their travels were not at an end. Once the exhibition was over, they were off to the Balearic Islands. John’s last work was done in Majorca (Harrogate Advertiser 23 Dec 1933).
In 1930 “Mrs John Bowes [sic – John’s mother’s maiden name] Wright, better known perhaps as Louise Wood of Philadelphia” was showing paintings of Mediterranean towns, portraits, and flower studies, at the Beaux Arts Gallery in London.16
Retirement in Brasted
In 1933 they moved to Brasted, Kent, not far from Chipstead where John had lived during the 1890s, and in October that year John held an exhibition of his etchings and watercolours in his garden studio at The Village House. In December 1933, he died.
“Harrogate sons… have distinguished themselves in different spheres and many parts of the world. One such was Mr John Wright, the eminent etcher and watercolourist… His water-colours show a free and bold use of rich glowing colours and a keen sense of design. His etchings…striking and dramatic”. (Harrogate Advertiser, 23 Dec 1933)
In 1936, Louise returned to America for the first time since leaving in October 1927. Her application for naturalization gives her address as 410 Chelten Avenue, Philadelphia. She died in Philadelphia in 1946 and was buried at Laurel Hill Cemetery.
Both John and Louise were artists. John’s works are held in a number of museums and galleries, while Louise’s works are held in none but occasionally appear at auction, and it is possible to find two or three of her works online. They met and married later in life and had no children. Unlike many women artists who gave up their art on marriage, Louise continued to paint, and together they had a life of travel and art. Throughout their lives John and Louise had travelled and lived in western Europe, the United States, Canada, North Africa (in 1909, John exhibited Fountain at Biskra (Algeria) at the Philadelphia Water Color Club’s exhibition), and the West Indies.
During my research, I have come across many tantalising titles of paintings and etchings which are not held in galleries and which are either in private hands or lost. It is to be hoped some will resurface. I would be particularly interested in seeing some of the Yorkshire paintings and etchings, and John’s evening view of Asolo.
References
1 J Johnson & A Greutzner, compilers, The Dictionary of British Artists 1880-1940, 1985
2 Richmond & Ripon Chronicle 26 Feb 1887. The daughter may have been Mary who married William Watt Daly of the Bengal Constabulary in 1874. Their daughters were born in India (the youngest in 1893) and by 1901 they were living in Jersey (Channel Islands). It is perhaps possible they could have been in Boulogne in 1887.
3 York Herald, 8 Feb. 1892
4 Liverpool Echo, 2 Jan 1929, and London Daily Chronicle, 8 Jan 1929
5 John’s sister, Catherine, married Robert Stephen Byron in 1879. Robert Stephen Byron died in 1900. In the 1901 census, widowed Catherine was visiting John and their mother in Robin Hoods Bay. Catherine had three daughters. In 1911, Catherine and her daughters, Gladys and Catherine, were living in Thornton le Dale, Yorkshire. Daughter Edith was visiting her grandmother, Mary Wright in Robin Hood’s Bay.
6 Sevenoaks Chronicle & Kentish Advertiser, 5 Jan 1900, 20 Dec 1901, 30 Dec 1904, 10 Mar 1906, 6 June 1913, 11 June 1915
7 Venice Biennale https://asac.labiennale.org
8 Sevenoaks Chronicle & Kentish Advertiser, 19 Jan 1906 and Liverpool Echo, 2 Jan 1929
9 Chris Petteys An International Dictionary of Women Artists born before 1900, 1985
10 The American Register for Paris and the Continent, 9 Mar 1901. For information about Louise in Paris see https://reidhall.globalcenters.columbia.edu
11 Catalogues of the water colour societies were found on the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s website https://philamuseum.libguides.com The paintings she exhibited also show that she had spent time in Holland, with titles including An Old Dutch Woman, A Dutch Type, The Vrouw.
12 Passport application and marriage register were found on www.ancestry.co.uk
13 James T Boulton & Andrew Robertson The Letters of D H Lawrence Volume III, CUP, 1984
14 The Antique Dealers project Antiques Dealers
15 Harrogate Advertiser, 23 Dec 1933
16 Chicago Tribune & The Daily News, New York, 3 Nov 1930
I have made much use of Ancestry www.ancestry.co.uk, The British Newspaper Archive https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk and also, for one or two references, Gallica (the digital library of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France https://gallica.bnf.fr) and I have received much help from George Bednar and encouragement from Simon Wood – to whom many thanks.