Talbot Hughes

Talbot Hughes (1869–1942) was a British painter (of genre, history and landscape), a collector of historical costumes and miniature portraits, and a writer on fine art and costume design. He exhibited at the Royal Academy from the age of 17 until 1913.

Biography Talbot Hughes was the son of still-life painter William Hughes, and brother of Sir Herbert Hughes-Stanton, a landscape painter.

He lived in London, and later in Osmington, near Weymouth, Dorset. From 1871 to 1913 he exhibited at the Royal Academy. He also exhibited with the Society of British Artists. In 1894 he was elected to the Arts Club. In 1903 he was elected to the Society of Oil Painters.

His painting

His painterly subjects ranged from the allegorical, figurative, and historical to the theatrical. He admired the style of Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier, the French classicist painter. Hughes was preoccupied with the refinement of the presentation of his subject, In 1913, when Hughes decided to put the rest of his collection up for sale, he was offered £5,000 by an American department store who wished to donate it to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The collection is still kept at the V&A. Talbot Hughes continued to donate individual items to the Museum until 1931. In 1988 the Rosenbach Museum & Library in Philadelphia, USA, mounted an exhibition of 30 of his Spanish portrait miniatures.

Paintings and Illustrations: External links

The Story of the Hare That Got Away 1898 The Path of True Love Never Did Run Smooth Sewing for Victory 1900 The Merry Widow, Illustration 1905 The Merry Widow, 2 illustrations at the Wine Museum