Oil painting, by Arthur Tomson, 'The Chalkpit', exhibited 1890

Given by Mrs Arthur Tomson

Provenance: Given by Mrs Arthur Tomson, 1907

Born in 1858, Arthur Graham Tomson was the sixth child of Whitbread Tomson, a banker, and his wife, Elizabeth Maria Cremer. After attending a preparatory school in Essex and Uppingham School in the East Midlands Tomson went to the Academy of Painting in Düsseldorf. He returned to England in 1882 and started exhibiting at the New Gallery and the Royal Academy. From 1889 he also exhibited with the New English Art Club (NEAC). He eloped with the poet Rosamund Armytage (who took the pen-name Graham R. Tomson and was later known as Rosamund Marriott Watson) in 1886 and following the finalisation of her divorce from her first husband, married her on 21st September 1887. She gave birth to a son a month later. In 1888 they settled in London. Tomson continued to paint and both husband and wife occasionally wrote articles for magazines, sometimes collaborating in their creative efforts. Tomson was most well known for his landscape paintings, but in the 1890s he also became known for his paintings of cats. He illustrated Rosamund’s edited collection Concerning Cats in 1892 and also had his own exhibition at Van Wisselingh's gallery in 1893, where the main subject was cats.(1) Tomson also had a talent for writing and he penned some poetry and fiction. He was best known, however, for his writing on art. Elizabeth Pennell described Tomson as a ‘staunch fighter’ in life and a ‘spirited revolutionary’ in print; one who enjoyed provoking controversy and igniting debate.(2) Tomson edited the short-lived magazine Art Weekly with Francis Bate, secretary of the NEAC, between February and July 1890. Notable among his article contributions is his rather unfavourable review of the Royal Academy exhibition in 1893 (Studio May 1893) where his verdict was that the show was largely ‘barren’ of what he deemed to be artistic.(3) His wife, Rosamund, left Tomson in 1894 for an Australian novelist. Despite this, Tomson continued painting and exhibiting with the NEAC and, when given a post at the Morning Leader in April 1898, he continued writing as an art critic under the alias N. E. Vermind. He married his second wife, Agnes Mary Hastings, on 14th April 1898 and she bore him a daughter in 1899. Soon after this event the family moved to Dorset. Tomson was to spend the rest of his life in the country, which was certainly a contributing factor to his descent into obscurity. Tomson died in Sussex on 14th June 1905.

The Chalkpit was exhibited at the NEAC in 1890 and shows Tomson’s great skill for capturing atmospheric affects at twilight. Tomson and members of the NEAC in general were great advocates of the genius of Jean-François Millet. Rosamund Tomson (under the name Graham R. Tomson) wrote a poem entitled ‘Jean-François Millet’ (Atlantic Monthly, 60 (1887), p.186) and Arthur Tomson wrote a book on the subject, Jean-François Millet and the Barbizon School (published 1903). Millet was an influence throughout Tomson’s career and his influence can be seen in this work through the realistic depiction of the landscape which is complimented by poetic effects of mood and tone.

Citations
1. The Times, Monday, Nov 27, 1893; pg. 10; Issue 34119; col B
2. Elizabeth Robins Pennell, Nights: Rome, Venice, in the aesthetic eighties; London, Paris, in the fighting nineties (Philadelphia and London: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1916)
3. Arthur Tomson, ‘A First Impression of the Royal Academy, 1893’ in The Studio (May 1893), p.78

134-1907