Ford Maddox Brown

Born: Calais, France, 16 April 1821

Died: London, 6 October 1893

Nationality: English


Work
Ford Maddox Brown, 1852-65

Background

son of a ship purser

Studies

with Albert Gregorius (Bruges); with Pieter van Hanselaere (Ghent); with Baron Gustaf Wappers at Antwerp Academ

Career

1844-45 – competes unsuccessfully for Houses of Parliament commission; settles in London; begins exhibiting regularly at Royal Academy (RA)

1848 – Dante Gabriel Rossetti becomes Brown’s pupil; affiliates with Pre-Raphaelites

1858-60 – teaches at Working Men’s College (London)

1861 – founder-member of design firm Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co

1863 – produces wood-engravings for Dalziels’ Bible Gallery

1865 –one-man show

1870 – Last of England appears in Art Journal

1878 – commissioned to execute wall paintings for the Great Hall, Manchester Town Hall

Travels

Bruges; Ghent; Antwerp (1837-39); Paris; Basel (1845); Rome (1845)

Commissions from

T.E. Plint; George Rae; James Leathart

Important Artworks

Cordelia at the Bedside of Lear, 1849 (Tate, London)

Last of England, 1852-55 (Birmingham Art Gallery)

Readings

Bendiner, Kenneth. The Art of Ford Madox Brown. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998

Boime, Albert. “Ford Madox Brown, Thomas Carlyle, and Karl Marx: Meaning and the Mystification of Work in the Nineteenth Century,” Arts Magazine (September 1979): 116-25

Brown, Ford Madox. The Diary of Ford Madox Brown. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1981

Curtis, Gerald. “Ford Madox Brown’s Work: An Iconographical Analysis,” The Art Bulletin, vol. 74, no. 4 (December 1992): 623-36

Newman, T. and R. Watkinson. Ford Madox Brown and the Pre-Raphaelite Circle. London: Chatto and Windus , 1991

Treuherz, Julian. Ford Madox Brown: Pre-Raphaelite Pioneer. London: Philip Wilson, 2010

Back To Top