Howard Jacobson TV - This Green and Pleasant Land TV - James Whistler - Mail online -
The painter of urban puddles he might be, but Atkinson Grimshaw’s moonlit cities are essentially lyrical, congenial to the presence of fancifully conceived figures. Grimshaw’s fairies are as though bred by the city of Leeds itself. Howard Jacobson, The Genius of British Art: Flesh, Channel 4 2010
In the 1860s a painter called John Atkinson Grimshaw began to produce romantic twilight depictions of the great northern industrial cities like this scene of his native Leeds. ibid.
I considered myself the inventor of Nocturnes until I saw Grimmy’s moonlit pictures. James Whistler
Today his oil paintings fetch up to £500,000 but a new exhibition reveals how Victorian master John Atkinson Grimshaw’s artistic ambitions left him destitute.
In his early twenties and with no professional training, the Yorkshireman decided ditch his job as a railway clerk to make a living from his art.
However his atmospheric depictions of areas including Glasgow, Liverpool, Leeds and London are now hugely sought-after.
Simon Toll, expert in Victorian art at Sotheby’s, said: ‘Grimshaw’s work is nostalgic and evocative of the period.
‘He is considered to be one of the best painters of moonlit scenes.’ Mail online article 19th April 2011 Sadie Whitelocks, ‘Hard times: The Victorian Artist Who Mastered the Night But was Overshadowed by Debt’