The Railway Station, 1862

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William Powell Frith (1819-1909) was almost forced to become a painter by his father, an innkeeper from Harrogate. He studied at the Royal Academy Schools and began his career as a portrait painter, travelling around the country from one sitter to another. After about 1840 he specialised in costume history and genre subjects, intimate interior scenes, and large-scale works like ‘Derby Day’ which are full of anecdotal incidents and minute details of dress which leave us a fascinating record of Victorian life. Frith’s works were so popular with his contemporaries that barriers had to be erected at the Royal Academy exhibitions to save them from the crush of admirers.

In his autobiography Frith claims that he was always ‘strongly drawn towards illustration of modern life.’ However, it was not until the Pre-Raphaelites had made scenes of contemporary life acceptable to the general public that he painted his first panorama of Victorian life, ‘Ramsgate Sands’, which was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1854. The enormous success of this, followed by ‘Derby Day’ in 1858, established Frith as a painter of contemporary life. In 1860 he approached the dealer L. V. Flatow with an oil sketch for ‘The Railway Station’. Flatow immediately commissioned the finished painting, with the sketch and copyright, for the then massive sum of £4,500. The finished canvas was exhibited at Flatow’s gallery in the Haymarket in 1862, where it was seen by over 21,000 admission paying visitors within seven weeks. A bridal party is placed to the centre right of the canvas, next to an incident in which two policemen arrest a suspected criminal who is about to board the train. ‘The Illustrated London News’ described the juxtaposition of the two groups as ‘an extreme contrast, both moral and pictorial.’ The painting was acquired by Thomas Holloway, for the edification of his students at the Holloway University College for Young Ladies.

255gsm Art Paper

Our standard prints are reproduced on a premium semi matt finish paper. Its micro-porous resin coating provides exceptional colour accuracy and stability

315gsm Museum Quality Watercolour Art Board, Acid Free

Our watercolour board has a natural white finish with a slightly structured, soft-textured surface equivalent to a traditional etching fine art paper. The surface has a special matte coating, designed for high quality fine art reproduction with giclée technology. It is an archival quality paper with great colour accuracy.

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Europe & the rest of the world from £8.00
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