William Henry Bartlett RI

William Henry Bartlett (1858-1932) was an accomplished artist and draughtsman, focusing primarily on landscape painting and subjects associated with the sea. In the late 1870s he travelled to Paris to study at the Ecole des Beaux Arts under Geróme and at the Académie Julian under Bouguereau. It was through his study in Paris that he found influence from Bastien Lepage, who has been credited with leading the emergence of the Naturalist school. This inspired his use of genre and pastoral themes shown in works such as The Village Road. He returned to London in 1880 where he began exhibiting in the Royal Academy and in 1889 he was presented with a silver medal at the Paris exhibition. He developed an interest in Irish rural life, in particular the harsh landscapes that people struggled to survive in, and this has translated into a number of his paintings.

Bartlett has been exhibited numerous times with the Royal Hibernian Academy (RHA) and the Royal Academy (RA). The Fine Art Society presented a one-man show of Bartlett’s work, he has been published in the Art Journal and he was also a member of the Royal Society of British Artists.