George Adolphus Storey

Miss Gladys Storey, the artist's daughter;
The Stone Gallery, Newcastle;
Sotheby's, London, 11 May 2004, lot 615;
The Maas Gallery, London, December 2004

The sheet appears to be sound. It has discoloured, mainly in the sky. Held under glass in a gilt plaster frame with a beige mount; unexamined out of frame.
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George Adolphus Storey was born in London and exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1852 and studied at the RA Schools from 1854. His early work was heavily influenced by the Pre-Raphaelite movement, particularly by the work of John Everett Millais and Ford Madox Brown. However, his style made a transition in the later 1850s, away from Pre-Raphaelitism towards more figurative and narrative subjects.  As a central figure and painter in London he moved in the same circles as James McNeill Whistler and it is reported that Charles Dickens once patted him on the head.  Storey was a regular exhibitor at the well known artistic academies, institutes and societies in London and for a nineteenth century painter his artistic career was long. The present watercolour study reminds the viewer of Brown's highly important painting An English Autumn Afternoon, Hampstead-Scenery (Birmingham Art Gallery), painted in 1853. Both works represent the suburbs of London looking rural and unurbanised. In Storey's watercolour the viewer looks across the beautiful countryside from Kilburn towards Hampstead and anticipating future development and urbanisation across the idyllic greenscape.