Biography
Sir Ernest Albert Waterlow RA ROI was a distinguished British painter of landscapes in oil and watercolour. A Royal Academician and former President of the Royal Society of Painters in Water Colours, he travelled extensively in Britain and Europe, seeking out landscapes distinguished by their beauty, atmosphere and sense of place.
There's an elegance to Waterlow’s work, but also a striking humility. His paintings invite us quietly into the places he encountered: an old cottage beside a stream, women talking on a country road, sheep returning home, children resting on a hillside, a Cornish village overlooking the sea.
His eye was repeatedly drawn to places where human life and the landscape had grown together. Old cottages, weathered lanes, mills, farms and fishing communities appear throughout his career. There is affection in these works, but little theatrical sentimentality. Waterlow seems to have regarded ordinary life as sufficient. A cottage did not need improving, nor a country woman turning into a heroine. Their presence was enough.
Light, too, was fundamental. His exhibition titles repeatedly evoke particular moments and conditions - Dawn, Dusk, Passing Showers, The Last of the Shower, September Noon. In his finest works, light becomes almost emotional: reflected gold upon a stream at sunset, the pale brilliance of a summer coast, or winter light penetrating a vast Alpine valley. Contemporary critics particularly admired the “haunting beauty” of his later mountain scenes.
Waterlow’s technique evolved considerably. An obituary recalled that in his earlier years he elaborated detail to an almost excessive degree, whereas his later painting became broader and increasingly concerned with atmosphere and feeling. Yet the underlying character remained remarkably consistent. Throughout his long career, his art was praised for its “great sincerity and care”.
Perhaps this is the quality that best explains his enduring charm. His was a humble kind of beauty - discovered rather than manufactured. The landscape always seems more important than the painter.
Early Years
Ernest Albert Waterlow was born in London on 24 May 1850, the eldest son of the lithographer Albert Crakell Waterlow. His uncle was the prominent philanthropist and politician Sir Sydney Waterlow, while the family also claimed descent from the seventeenth-century landscape painter Antoine Waterloo.
Waterlow was apparently delicate in health as a child and his parents encouraged his artistic inclinations. He attended Eltham Collegiate School before continuing his education at Heidelberg in Germany, whose picturesque surroundings evidently made a considerable impression upon the young artist.
Before beginning his formal studies at the Royal Academy Schools, Waterlow travelled and painted in Switzerland and Germany. These early journeys appear to have helped establish a lifelong habit: he would repeatedly travel in search of landscapes that interested him, both in Britain and on the Continent.
He also attended Carey’s School in Bloomsbury before entering the Royal Academy Schools in 1872, at the comparatively mature age of 22.
Royal Academy
Waterlow progressed rapidly. He had already exhibited Evening in Dovedale, Derbyshire at the Royal Academy in 1872 and, only a year after entering its Schools, won the prestigious Turner Gold Medal for landscape painting with A Land Storm.
As one contemporary writer later observed, from 1872 “there was no turning back”.
During the 1870s he exhibited extensively at Burlington House, with works including Passing Showers, A Rock-bound Coast, The Brow of the Hill, The Last of the Shower, The Head of the Lake and A Roadside Inn. His subjects reveal an artist already travelling widely, from Derbyshire and Scotland to the British coast.
Initially regarded by at least one critic as a potential marine painter, Waterlow increasingly established himself as a landscapist of considerable range.
Cornwall & Ireland
Cornwall became particularly important. Waterlow painted at St Ives, Fowey, Tintagel and elsewhere, producing works such as The Old Post Office, Tintagel, The Lugger Inn, Fowey, Cottage Steps, St Ives, Street in St Ives and A Cornish Harbour.
These subjects suited him perfectly. Cornwall offered dramatic scenery, certainly, but also fishing communities, weathered buildings and everyday rural life - precisely the meeting of people and place that fascinated him.
Ireland followed. In 1887, his Galway Gossips was prominently displayed at the Royal Academy and purchased by the Chantrey Trustees. The painting proved enormously popular and became one of the defining successes of his career.
Its title is revealing. Waterlow could have painted Galway merely as picturesque scenery. Instead, he chose its inhabitants and their conversation. Landscape becomes the setting for a fragment of ordinary life.
He continued exploring Irish subjects, including The White Sands of Connemara and The Wrack Cart, Connemara.
Royal Watercolour Society
Watercolour occupied an equally important place in Waterlow’s career. He was elected an Associate of the Royal Society of Painters in Water Colours in 1880 and a full member in 1894.
In 1897, following the death of Sir John Gilbert, Waterlow was elected President of the Society, reportedly defeating Sir Edward Burne-Jones for the position. He remained closely associated with the organisation for many years before relinquishing the presidency in 1913.
His watercolours demonstrate the same sensitivity evident in his oils, particularly his ability to suggest atmosphere without overwhelming a scene with detail.
Royal Academician
Following the success of Galway Gossips, Waterlow was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy in 1890 and a full Royal Academician in 1903.
His growing institutional stature was accompanied by royal recognition. He was knighted as part of the 1902 Coronation Honours and received the accolade from King Edward VII at Buckingham Palace on 24 October that year.
Yet there is little sense in his later work of an artist becoming grander as his reputation grew. Waterlow continued to paint the subjects that had always interested him: villages, farms, streams, coastlines, mountains and ordinary people going about their lives.
Travels
Travel remained fundamental throughout his career. Beyond England, Scotland, Ireland and Cornwall, Waterlow worked extensively on the Continent. As early as 1871, he obtained a passport signed by Foreign Secretary Earl Granville permitting travel through Europe, including to Warsaw.
France became another source of inspiration, with works depicting Provence, Moret-sur-Loing and the Maritime Alps. Switzerland and the wider Alpine landscape also occupied him, particularly later in life.
Wherever he travelled, Waterlow appears to have sought the picturesque rather than the fashionable. His paintings become a gentle record of places encountered and enjoyed.
Portrait of Sir Ernest A Waterlow, R.A, 1889, by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema RA.
Later Years
Waterlow eventually settled in Hampstead, at the heart of a thriving artistic community, while continuing to travel and exhibit.
His later landscapes became broader in handling. Contemporary observers who remembered the almost painstaking detail of his youthful work noted the transformation, particularly in his Alpine scenes. Here, individual details could surrender to something larger: weather, distance, light and the immense scale of the landscape itself.
Yet his quieter English subjects remained equally admired. An obituary singled out his idyllic landscapes of the Sussex Downs, praising watercolours such as September Noon and Clayton Mills for embodying the “abiding charm of Sussex”.
It is an apt phrase for Waterlow. He repeatedly sought precisely that quality - the abiding charm of a place rather than its temporary spectacle.
Family
Waterlow married twice and was survived by his second wife, the widow of Dr G. Sealy, together with two sons and two daughters from his first marriage.
His sister Constance married the distinguished neurologist Sir David Ferrier, and Waterlow occasionally employed his artistic abilities in an altogether different field, producing illustrations for Ferrier’s scientific work.
Death
Sir Ernest Waterlow died at his Hampstead home on 25 October 1919 following a short illness. He was sixty-nine.
His funeral service was held at St James’s Church, Piccadilly, followed by burial at Hampstead Cemetery. The congregation provides some indication of the esteem in which he was held. Among those attending were leading figures from British art and architecture, including Sir David Murray, Sir Luke Fildes, Sir Reginald Blomfield, Sir Aston Webb, Solomon J. Solomon, Frank Dicksee, Arthur Hacker, J. C. Dollman and Alfred Parsons, together with representatives of the Royal Academy and other artistic societies.
It was a remarkable gathering for a painter whose art so often celebrated unremarkable moments.
Waterlow had accumulated almost every honour available to a British landscape painter of his generation - medals, presidencies, Royal Academy membership and a knighthood. Yet perhaps the more revealing legacy lies elsewhere: in a woman walking home with firewood, a few ducks beside a stream, an old cottage beneath blossom, or friends stopping to talk beside a road.
He spent his life looking carefully at beautiful places. And, with characteristic humility, he allowed the places to tell their own stories.
Known For
Landscape painting; watercolours; rural genre scenes; coastal views; Cornwall; Ireland and Connemara; Sussex landscapes; Alpine scenes; atmospheric light; picturesque rural life.
Associations
Royal Academy; Royal Academy Schools; Royal Society of Painters in Water Colours; Hampstead artistic community.
Achievements
Turner Gold Medal for landscape painting, 1873; elected Associate of the Royal Society of Painters in Water Colours, 1880; elected Associate of the Royal Academy, 1890; elected full member of the Royal Society of Painters in Water Colours, 1894; elected President of the Society, 1897; knighted, 1902; elected Royal Academician, 1903.
Exhibited
Royal Academy; Royal Society of Painters in Water Colours.
Studied
Carey’s School, Bloomsbury; Royal Academy Schools, London.
Public Collections
- Tate Britain, London, including Galway Gossips
- The British Museum
- V&A
- Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
- Ferens Art Gallery
- Guildhall Art Gallery
- Harris Museum & Art Gallery
- Laing Art Gallery
- Manchester Art Gallery
- National Trust, Standen
- Nottingham City Museums & Galleries
- Reading Museum
- Royal Academy of Arts
- Royal Watercolour Society
- Salford Museum & Art Gallery
- Shipley Art Gallery
- Southwark Heritage Centre
- Sunderland Museum & Winter Gardens
- The Alpine Club Collection
- Touchstones Rochdale
- Walker Art Gallery
- York Art Gallery
Timeline
1850
Born in London on 24 May, the eldest son of lithographer Albert Crakell Waterlow.
1871
Obtained a passport for travel on the Continent. Travelled and painted in Europe, including Switzerland and Germany.
1872
Entered the Royal Academy Schools. Exhibited Evening in Dovedale, Derbyshire, at the Royal Academy.
1873
Won the Turner Gold Medal for landscape painting with A Land Storm.
1880
Elected an Associate of the Royal Society of Painters in Water Colours.
1887
Exhibited Galway Gossips at the Royal Academy. The work was purchased by the Chantrey Trustees.
1890
Elected an Associate of the Royal Academy.
1894
Elected a full member of the Royal Society of Painters in Water Colours.
1897
Elected President of the Royal Society of Painters in Water Colours.
1902
Knighted in the Coronation Honours and received the accolade from King Edward VII at Buckingham Palace.
1903
Elected a full Royal Academician.
1913
Retired as President of the Royal Society of Painters in Water Colours.
1919
Died at his Hampstead residence on 25 October, aged sixty-nine. Buried at Hampstead Cemetery.