James Webb (11 April 1835 – 9 March 1895) was a British painter known primarily for marine paintings, coastal scenes, and landscapes. His subjects ranged from views of Britain to continental European landscapes, ports, and cities.
Webb exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1853 to 1888 and also showed works at the British Institution, the Society of British Artists in Suffolk Street, the New Watercolour Society, and the Grosvenor Gallery. His paintings are held in numerous public collections in Britain and abroad, including the Tate, Victoria and Albert Museum, Royal Museums Greenwich, and the National Gallery of Victoria.
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Early life and family
James Webb was born on 11 April 1835 at Glebe Place, Chelsea, London, the second son of the painter Archibald Webb and his wife Ellen (née de Lawtre). His father specialized in marine and coastal subjects and was a professor of drawing. Webb's elder brother, Byron Webb, was also a painter, known for sporting subjects, including hunting scenes and animals.
Webb was identified as an artist from an early age: in the 1851 census, at the age of 15, he was listed as an “Artist Graduate.” He was a pupil of the marine painter Clarkson Frederick Stanfield.
By 1871, Webb was married to Jane Webb and was living in Hampstead as the head of a household that also included his parents, four other relatives, and four servants. In 1881, Webb and his wife were living at 43 Abbey Road, Marylebone, with his 89-year-old father and several other members of the household.
Career
Webb began exhibiting at the Royal Academy in 1853, while still a teenager, and continued to exhibit there regularly until 1888. Over the course of his career he also exhibited at the British Institution, the Society of British Artists, the New Watercolour Society, and the Grosvenor Gallery.
In 1871, his painting Brighton in the Season sold for £498 15s to a buyer identified as S. Rucker. Another work from approximately the same period, Brighton from the West Pier (c. 1870), was painted jointly with George Earl and is now in the collection of Brighton & Hove Museums.
In February 1872, three works by Webb (Ehrenbreitstein, on the Rhine, Cadiz—Spain, and Brighton in the Season) were offered at auction in New York by Geo. A. Leavitt & Co., in a sale that also included works by American painters including Thomas Cole, Asher Brown Durand, and John Frederick Kensett.
Webb continued painting into the final years of his life. At the time of his death in 1895, the Nottingham Evening Post described him as a “well-known landscape painter” and identified Brighton in the Season as his most important work, noting that it had been sold to an American purchaser “for a very large sum.”
Art and subjects
Webb painted marine subjects, coastal scenes, landscapes, and views of towns and cities. His subjects spanned Britain and continental Europe, including England, Wales, France, Spain, Italy, Holland, the Rhine, and Constantinople. His paintings frequently emphasize changing weather, atmospheric distance, and the effects of light upon water and landscape. Ships, fishermen, travellers, architecture, and other human elements often occupy relatively small portions of compositions dominated by sky, water, or terrain. His style has been described as robust and naturalistic, characterized by a relatively pale palette, with influence from J. M. W. Turner.
Contemporary critics commented favourably on Webb's technique and reputation. In a review of Scene near Snowdon and The Old Mill, The Art Journal praised his handling of light and dark as extremely skilful. In 1868, the journal praised his large Port of Rotterdam for its treatment of light, reflections, and figures, describing it as “by far the most important production of its class” to have appeared in recent years. In another review, The Art Journal described Webb as an “excellent artist” who had recently attained “the high position to which he has been long entitled.”
Art UK records 52 works by Webb in UK public collections.
Works
1859: A Barge in a Norfolk Landscape
1863: Coastal Scene with Boats
1864: Fishing off the Coast
1865: On a Choppy Sea
1865: A view of the Rhine with Marksburg Castle above the town of Braubach
1868: A view of Margate from the Pier (smaller version of the painting of the same title in the collection of Thanet District Council)
c. 1870: Brighton from the West Pier, Brighton & Hove Museums (with George Earl)
By 1871: Brighton in the Season
1875: Fishing boats and Shipping in Rotterdam in an Evening Calm
1875: Cartagena
1875: Vessels Moored at the Steps of a Moorish Palace
1876: Givet
1876: Dinant, Belgium
1876–1885: Old Kew Bridge, London, Museum of London
1878: Heidelberg
1883: Birkhamstead
1885: Lock on the Thames
1888: Off to the fishing grounds
Undated: Shipping at Sunset
Undated: River Landscape