Featured 19th Century Painter: Henry John Boddington
- March 10, 2021 10:21
Henry John Boddington was born into the Williams family of well-known English landscape artists. As an adult, he changed his surname to that of his wife’s to distinguish himself from his artist relatives. Many of the family painted in what was then the rural area of Barnes, London, located on the south side of the River Thames. Known as the “Barnes School”, the family specialized in depicting farm and village settings, cloudy mountain vistas, boats in the marshes along the Thames, and grazing cattle. 19th century artist Henry John Boddington developed his own style of landscape painting in which he became adept at effectively portraying light as it passed through the canopy of trees, which provides a warm, atmospheric nuance to his paintings. Artist Henry Boddington did not wander too far from his established home in Sussex; he never crossed the English Channel to visit the continental mainland of Europe. Instead, he made trips to Devonshire County; the mountainous Lake District, Cumbria County; Yorkshire County; North Wales; and Scotland. In 1842, Boddington was selected to become a member of the Royal Society of British Artists, the only member of the William’s family to achieve that status. He exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy of Arts, London and the Society of British Artists.
