Ford Madox Brown
The Pre-Raphaelites' older friend and teacher.
Ford Madox Brown was close to the Brotherhood without being a member. His Work and The Last of England are two of the great depictions of Victorian life, and he was one of the founders of Morris's firm in 1861.
Ford Madox Brown was born in 1821 in Calais, France, to British parents. He trained at art academies in Belgium, including Antwerp, and then lived in Paris. In Rome in 1845 he met the German Nazarenes, a group of artists who sought to renew painting by returning to the Middle Ages and the early Renaissance. They influenced him deeply.
He settled in London, where in 1848 the young Dante Gabriel Rossetti asked to become his pupil. Brown never became a member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, but he was close to the group and shared its ideals. His breakthrough came with two large scenes of contemporary life. The Last of England, painted in 1852–55, shows a couple emigrating and is in Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery. Work, painted in 1852–65, depicts navvies on a street in Hampstead and the different classes of society. It is in Manchester Art Gallery.
Brown often painted outdoors to capture daylight precisely, and his pictures are packed with details and stories. He also painted historical subjects, such as Chaucer at the Court of Edward III, which is now in Sydney. He was one of the founders of Morris's firm in 1861 and designed stained glass and furniture. When the firm was reorganised in 1875 there was a bitter dispute with Morris.
He struggled to gain recognition from the Royal Academy and in 1865 organised his own solo exhibition with a catalogue, which was unusual at the time. His first wife died young, and he later married his model Emma Hill. His daughter Lucy became an artist and married William Michael Rossetti. His grandson was the writer Ford Madox Ford.
In his last years he painted twelve large murals on the history of the city in Manchester Town Hall, a project that lasted from 1879 to 1893. He died in 1893. Ford Madox Brown is regarded today as one of the sharpest realists of the Victorian age and as an important link between Continental painting and the Pre-Raphaelites.