John Atkinson Grimshaw 1836-1893

‘The work of Atkinson Grimshaw is valuable and unique in several respects. He made a great popular success out of that amalgam of Pre-Raphaelite sentiment, nature and industry that dominated the culture of northern England in the later nineteenth century. His work is our only visual equivalent to the great epics of industrial change, the novels of Gaskell and Dickens.’ (David Bromfield, Atkinson Grimshaw 1836-1893, exhibition catalogue, 1979-1980, pg. 5) 

In the 1870s and 1880s John Atkinson Grimshaw painted a series of views of deserted suburban streets in Yorkshire and in London. These images, often depicting a solitary enigmatic female figure, making her way down a leaf and puddle strewn road, are perhaps the most emotive and typical of the artist, who was unrivalled in his depiction of the evening gloaming. Whether he was painting suburban roads, the docks at Whitby of the shopping streets of London or Leeds; busy and noisy places during the day, Grimshaw painted the silent solitary evening still, when the residents, dock-workers and shop-assistants return home, leaving the streets deserted. The horses and carts, which have left their impressions in the damp soil of the road have long since departed and the gateways have been closed to the outside world. There is an emotive sense of stillness and calm, which pervades these images of evening light.