Oil painting, 'Island of Zante', William White Warren, 1878

Given by Alfred Jones

Given by Alfred Jones of Bath, 1918


William White Warren was a nineteenth-century landscape painter known predominantly for his small sketch-like landscape paintings. Born around 1832, Warren was first recognised on the London art scene in the 1860s, during which time he exhibited seven paintings at the British Institution. At this time he was living in Peckham, South East London, and he often drew inspiration from this area and other parts of London, using them as subjects many times. Despite frequently depicting urban scenes Warren is perhaps best known for his landscapes and representations of coastal areas. He travelled around Britain, particularly the south, and painted areas such as Dorset, Gravesend and Cornwall. While architectural and urban elements still feature in some of his more rural scenes, they are usually overshadowed by his representations of the sea or sky, which are articulated through a combination of pure colour and a loose, almost Impressionistic handling of paint. The Crystal Palace from Penge (c.1854-1866 National Gallery London) is a good example of this as the dynamic cloud-scudded sky achieves much of the focus here, dominating over the distant Crystal Palace. Warren evidently enjoyed capturing the variety and nuances of natural effects and perhaps it was in order to seek out such variety that he made several trips abroad in the 1860s and 1870s. His one-man show in 1869 at the German Gallery, New Bond Street featured a number of paintings of Ireland, France and Italy. In 1870 he toured Spain and North Africa and on his return he displayed the resulting work in an exhibition at a temporary gallery at 12 Old Compton Road, Soho. In 1877-8 he travelled to Venice and Cyprus. The scratched inscription ‘August 10/78’ on the lower right of the Island of Zante makes it certain that this work was painted during this trip. It shows his characteristic easy handling of paint and his skill in capturing a moment and mood through rapid representation.

In January 1886 Christie’s held a four-day sale of the collections of ‘W. W. Warren Esq. of 21 Suffolk Street, Pall Mall’ which included paintings, porcelain and metalwork. Among the list of paintings to be sold were a number of Warren’s own works, mostly of Mediterranean subjects, and Simeon Solomon’s The Mystery of Faith (1870). According to the sale catalogue the intention of the auction was to produce enough funds for Warren, who was suffering from ill health, to spend more time in clement climates abroad. Despite further travels in Europe after this date, Warren ended up in Bristol in the last years of his life, surviving on little and painting for small sums of money. He died in 1911.

There was a scandal over the misrepresentation of Warren’s work shortly after his death. The Dowdeswell Gallery, a prominent Bond Street institution, claimed that Alfred Jones, an art dealer, had misrepresented Warren’s work as being that of John Constable. Warren never intended to pass his work off as Constable’s and it was noted by Charles John Holmes, Director of the National Portrait Gallery, who was called as an expert witness at the trial, that the styles of Constable and Warren were quite distinct. Nevertheless, this trial is likely to have had an impact on the endurance of Warren’s art. He died in 1911, prior to the start of the trial and was therefore unable to represent himself and reaffirm his reputation following the case.

Bibliography

Catalogue of a series of studies in oil by the late W. W. Warren, (a follower of John Constable, R.A.), (London: Dowdeswell Galleries, 1913)

William White Warren (c.1832-1911): an exhibition of oil sketches (London: Martyn Gregory, 1995)

Catalogue of original sketches taken during the summer of 1870, in Spain : including Granada, and the Alhambra; Seville and the Alcazar; Cordova, Toledo, Gibraltar, and North Africa, by W. W. Warren (London: The Gallery, 1871)

E.326-1918