John George Sowerby
Chrysanthemums
The Kingfisher's Haunt
John George Sowerby (1850–1914) was an English painter and illustrator from Gateshead, and director of Ellison Glassworks, the Sowerby family business, which during the 1880s was the largest producer of pressed glass in the world. The grandson of naturalist James Sowerby, his paintings were exhibited in the Royal Academy of Arts, and his children's book illustrations were generally well received.[1][2]
Sowerby's landscapes and floral paintings, while not numerous, were described as showing "a genuine Pre-Raphaelite intensity of vision".[3] He brought designs inspired by the Arts and Crafts movement into Ellison Glassworks.[1] He collaborated with the painter H. H. Emmerson on the 1880 children's book Afternoon Tea, which was generally praised by book reviewers but generated some controversy: artist Kate Greenaway and her supporters viewed it as an inferior imitation of her 1879 picture book Under the Window: a commercial success that inspired a wave of similar books.[4] Sowerby countered that the illustrations were not imitations of Greenaway's art but merely within the same genre.[5] Afternoon Tea also suffered from printing inconsistencies and colour misalignment, the result of somewhat haphazard assembly by three different engraving firms before publication.[4] Two of Sowerby's later children's books however (At Home and At Home Again, each decorated by Thomas Crane), are regarded as superior;[6] described by librarian scholar Roger Dixon as "among the loveliest books ever produced."[7]
Sowerby had three sons and three daughters: daughter Githa Sowerby became a noted playwright and children's book author, with many of her books illustrated by sister Millicent Sowerby, who also illustrated classic nursery rhymes and stories such as Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.[2]
Soweby died on 14 December 1914 in Herefordshire, to where he had retired.[8]
Books
Afternoon Tea: Rhymes for Children. With H. H. Emmerson. London: Frederick Warne & Co., 1880
At Home. With Thomas Crane. London: Marcus Ward & Co., 1881
At Home Again. With Thomas Crane and Eliza Keary. London: Marcus Ward & Co., 1883
Jimmy: Scenes From the Life of a Black Doll. London: George Routledge & Sons., 1888
Young Maids & Old China. With F. W. Bourdillon. London: Marcus Ward & Co., 1889
Rooks and their Neighbours. London: Gay & Bird; Newcastle-on-Tyne: Mawson, Swan, & Morgan, 1895
References
Arwas, Victor (1996). The Art of Glass: Art Nouveau to Art Deco. Papadakis Publisher. p. 106. ISBN 978-1-901092-00-4.
Gray, Sara (2009). "Sowerby, Amy Millicent". The Dictionary of British Women Artists. Casemate Publishers. pp. 246–247. ISBN 978-0-7188-3084-7.
Wood, Christopher (1996). Victorian Painting in Oils and Watercolours. Antique Collectors' Club. p. 140. ISBN 978-1-85149-249-7.
Lundin, Anne (1993). "Under the Window and Afternoon Tea: "Twirling the Same Blade of Grass"". The Lion and the Unicorn. The Johns Hopkins University Press. 17 (1): 45–56. doi:10.1353/uni.0.0311. ISSN 0147-2593.
Taylor, Ina (1991). The Art of Kate Greenaway: A Nostalgic Portrait of Childhood. Pelican Publishing Company. p. 110. ISBN 978-1-4556-0037-3.
Girouard, Mark (1977). Sweetness and Light: The Queen Anne Movement, 1860–1900. The Clarendon Press. pp. 150–151. ISBN 978-0-19-817330-4.
Dixon, Roger (2011). "Belfast Publishing". In Murphy, James H. The Oxford History of the Irish Book, Volume IV: The Irish Book in English, 1800–1891. Oxford University Press. p. 79. ISBN 978-0-19-818731-8.
Raymond Slack (1987). English Pressed Glass, 1830–1900. Barrie & Jenkins. p. 66. ISBN 978-0-7126-1871-7.
Further reading
Murray, Sheilagh (1982). The Peacock and the Lions: A History and Manual for Collectors of Pressed Glass of the North-East of England. Stocksfield, Northumberland: Oriel Press. ISBN 9780853621973.
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