Martin Archer Shee

Sir Martin Archer Shee (23 December 1769 – 13 August 1850) was an Irish painter and writer. He specialised in portrait painting. He enjoyed success during the Regency era. From 1830 he served as the president of the Royal Academy in succession to Thomas Lawrence.

Early life He was born in Dublin, of an old Irish Roman Catholic family, the son of Martin Shee, a merchant, who regarded the profession of a painter as an unsuitable occupation for a descendant of the Shees. His son Martin nevertheless studied art in the Royal Dublin Society and came to London. There, in 1788, he was introduced by Edmund Burke to Joshua Reynolds, on whose advice he studied in the schools of the Royal Academy of Arts.

Career Painting Portrait of the Duke of Clarence. Portrait of William, Duke of Clarence, 1800 In 1789, he exhibited his first two pictures, the Head of an Old Man and Portrait of a Gentleman. Over the next ten years he steadily increased in practice. He was chosen an associate of the Royal Academy in 1798.

In 1789, he married Mary, eldest daughter of James Power of Youghal. During the Regency era he continued to produce portraits of leading figures, but was often overshadowed by his friend and rival Thomas Lawrence.

Amongst the notable figures who sat to him were his fellow Irishmen the politician Henry Grattan and the author Thomas Moore, both paintings now in the National Gallery of Ireland in Dublin.

Writing Portrait of the Irish politician Henry Grattan, a friend of Archer Shee. In 1805 he published a poem consisting of Rhymes on Art, and a second part followed in 1809. Lord Byron spoke well of it in his English Bards and Scotch Reviewers. Shee published another small volume of verse in 1814, entitled The Commemoration of Sir Joshua Reynolds, and other Poems, but this was less successful. He also produced a tragedy, Alasco, set in Poland. The play was accepted at Covent Garden, but was refused a licence, on the grounds that it contained treasonable allusions, and Shee angrily resolved to make his appeal to the public. He carried out his threat in 1824, but Alasco was still on the list of unacted dramas in 1911. He also published three novels – Oldcourt (1829, in three volumes), Cecil Hyde (1834) and Harry Calverley (1835).

Archer Shee benefited from the support of William IV who came to the throne in 1830. In 1843 he produced a Portrait of Queen Victoria depicting the young queen, commissioned from him by the academy. He recognised the talent of the young John Everett Millais and encouraged his parents to let him pursue painting as a career.

In an examination before the parliamentary committee of 1836 concerning the functions of the Royal Academy, he ably defended its rights. The following year the Royal Academy relocated from Somerset House to its new home at the National Gallery. He continued to paint till 1845, when illness made him retire to Brighton. He was deputised for at the academy by J. M. W. Turner, who had appointed him a trustee of the projected Turner almshouse. From 1842 to 1849, he was the first president of the Birmingham Society of Artists.

Death Shee died in Brighton in 1850 and was buried in the western extension to St Nicholas' Churchyard in Brighton. His headstone remains, but has been laid flat and moved to the perimeter of the site.

Personal life

Shee had three sons, who became successful barristers, and three daughters.

One of his descendants was George Archer-Shee, whose story inspired The Winslow Boy, a play written by Sir Terence Rattigan; another descendant was Martin Archer-Shee, a member of parliament in England.

Shee's descendant, Mary Archer-Shee, supports the campaign for the fulfilment of Turner's wishes for his bequests.

Written works by Shee (selected) Elements of art, a poem; in six cantos (1809) The Commemoration of Reynolds: In Two Parts (1814)