Henry Jamyn Brooks

Henry Jamyn Brooks (1839–1925) was a British painter, particularly known for his pictures of meetings and events, in which many individuals are personally identifiable. He painted royalty, and portraits of civic leaders and military people, and was also a photographer.

Personal life

Brooks was born in 1839.

His son, Sidney Malcolm Wellbye Brooks (born 1874, Abingdon), was a member of the Anglican missionary organisation, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts and was reported murdered in China, during the Boxer Rebellion, on 30 December 1899.

Brooks died in Essex in 1925.

Career

Among the organisations whose meetings Brooks painted were: The Corporation of Abingdon (1877–1878), Reading Borough Council (1878), the first meeting of London County Council, in the County Hall Spring Gardens (1889) and the Royal College of Surgeons' Court of Examiners (1894).

In 1886, his business address was 7 Trafalgar Studios, Manresa Road, King's Road in south-west London.

His painting Private View of the Old Masters Exhibition, Royal Academy, 1888 features sixty-six people. There are a number of notable contemporary artists in the work, including Sir John Everett Millais, William Holman Hunt, George Richmond, William Powell Frith, Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, Frank Holl, Sir Edward Poynter, Sir Philip Burne-Jones, and Sir William Quiller Orchardson. Other notable people are critic John Ruskin (who was not present at the event), banker Alfred de Rothschild, and prime minister William Ewart Gladstone. It also includes a self-portrait. In 1914, he recalled the circumstances in which the work was conceived:

He donated the painting to the National Portrait Gallery in 1919. The reception had been held at Buckingham Palace in 1897, as part of Victoria's Diamond Jubilee celebrations. He also painted Victoria, near the end of her reign, in a work called Queen Victoria's Last Ceremony, in which she was shown receiving Lord Roberts and his staff on their return from Africa. The painting was exhibited at Graves' Galleries, Pall Mall, in London in June 1901,

His work is in a number of collections, including the National Portrait Gallery, the Royal Institution, the Royal Air Force Museum, the City of London Corporation's Guildhall Art Gallery, and Brasenose College, Oxford.