I have just spotted in the footnotes to Chloe Ward’s excellent short book on The Drawings of G.F. Watts an entry in Mary Watts’s unpublished diary for 22 January 1891 which gives some indication of her husband’s view of the RA: ‘More and more one regrets that Signor should even nominally be connected with such a dull stupid institution, where in future times all the greatest names of the day will be outside – Rossetti, Holman Hunt, Burne Jones and many more – why does one go on hoping for any improvement ? It becomes more and more impossible each year. Only love of Sir Frederic (Leighton) keeps Signor there’.
Tag Archives: G.F. Watts
Watts and Leighton
I travelled down to Guildford to open the exhibition Brothers in Art: Drawings by Watts and Leighton at the Watts Gallery in Compton. Watts and Leighton were friends and neighbours in Holland Park, Leighton calling on Watts most mornings at 9am for a gossip and to keep him up-to-date with what was happening at the RA. Leighton was an enthusiastic RA, a member of every committee, and elected President in 1878, when he was only 48 (the next youngest PRA was our current PRA elected when he was 59). Watts was much less keen and had to be endlessly prevented from resigning by Leighton. But they both shared a great interest in drawing and were, in different ways, very skilled draughtsmen.
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