Victorian Ships

De: Gordon Bell, Arthur Credland

Narrado por: Virtual Voice

John Ward was a self-taught artist, the son of a Master Mariner, who began his career apprenticed to a house and ship painter in Hull. Having completed his term by 1819, aged 21, he exhibited his first painting at the Royal Academy twelve years later. By the early 1840’s, he had begun to explore printmaking to produce ship portraits of local vessels and to gather material for a Manual of Marine Painting. “Marine Studies of British Merchant Vessels” and “Ten Views Illustrative of the Several Rates and Classes of Vessels in Her Majesty’s Navy” appeared as albums of lithographs bound in paper covers. They were; ‘expressly executed as a work of information and instruction ... forming a Guide to Drawing for the purpose of Painting and the Marine Profession generally.’ John Ward did not live to complete his project. He died of cholera in Hull during the great epidemic of 1849. This book brings together Ward’s works on paper for the first time in order to realise his original aim. Gordon Bell, formerly Guest Curator at the Hull Maritime Museum and author of “Northern Seascapes and Landscapes: Early Victorian Watercolours, Prints and Drawings” began his career as a teacher of art in primary and secondary schools. His interests in education took him into a variety of posts in universities and colleges and was appointed Professor of Education in 1988. Arthur Credland MBE, was Curator of “John Ward of Hull, Marine Painter, 1798 - 1849”, an exhibition held at the Ferens Art Gallery in 1981 to commemorate the opening of the Humber Bridge. He is the author of “Marine Painting in Hull over Three Centuries” and “Artists and Craftsmen of Hull and East Yorkshire.” Until his retirement in 2008, he was Keeper of Hull Maritime Museum.