2010/2

Harvest Girl,

Charles Edward Wilson (Artist)

Watercolour by Charles Edward Wilson (1854-1941) depicts a harvest girl leaning on her wooden hay rake. The painting is dated 1904.
This watercolour by Charles Edward Wilson (1854-1941) depicts a harvest girl leaning on her wooden hay rake. Wilson was born in Whitwell, Derbyshire, the son of the village schoolmaster, and studied at Sheffield School of Art. He developed a specialism in rustic scenes. The painting is dated 1904.

1 painting

MERL 'Handwritten accession' form (Museum of English Rural Life) – 'Description: Full length portrait of a harvest girl standing, leaning on a wooden hay rake. A wooden fence and stile is in the background to the left of her, and some trees in the background to the right. Signed at the bottom on the right, 'C.E. Wilson, 1904.' Wooden frame, gold painted, and with some damage to the plaster moulding. Glazed, with golden mount. // Dimensions: Frame 62 x 77 cm. Visble area of watercolour 37 x 57 cm. // Associated information: Purchased as part of the Collection 20thc Rural Culture project. Charles Edward Wilson (1854 - 1941) was a painter of rustic genre subjects in watercolour. He was born in Whitwell, Derbyshire, son of the village schoolmaster, and studied at Sheffield School of Art. He exhibited 17 works at the Royal Academy. Several of his studies of country life are still popular as greetings cards.', Collecting 20thc Rural Culture blog [Wednesday, 7 April 2010] – 'Harvest Girl, by Charles Wilson, 1904 // This was our first acquisition of 2010. Charles Edward Wilson (1854-1941) was born in Whitwell, Derbyshire, the son of the village schoolmaster, and studied at Sheffield School of Art. He developed a specialism in rustic scenes, some of which can still be seen on greetings cards today, and exhibited a total of 17 works at the Royal Academy. // The watercolour here of a harvest girl leaning on her wooden hay rake owes something to George Stubbs' famous painting, The Haymakers, of 1785 in which a comparable pose is struck. But this is 1904 and a genre of sentimentalised rural art that was a hangover from the late Victorian period. These gentle rustic scenes of wholesome innocence characterised the way that a predominantly urban and industrial society liked to think of its countryside and its country women. But things were beginning to change fast; and demure portraits of country maidens would no longer be appropriate to the era of the First World War and beyond.// A new breed of women farmers was now making the news, like these two, Miss Andrews and Miss Spencer, who trained at Reading University and the Midland Agricultural College respectively, and in the 1920s took a Sussex farm in partnership to build up a successful dairying and poultry enterprise.', Artist biography of Charles Edward Wilson from www.haynesfineart.com [15-01-2010] - Wilson is a painter of rustic genre subjects in watercolour. He exhibited seventeen works at the Royal Academy and thirteen works at the New Watercolour Society as well as exhibiting at various other venues. He was born at Whitwell in [Nottinghamshire] and lived at Addiscombe in Surrey. Wilson studied at the Sheffield School of Art. // Titles at the Royal Academy include, 'The Light of the Cottage', 'Gathering Blackberries' and 'The Farmer's Daughter'. // The work of Charles Edward Wilson is always intensely personal with a rare feeling for the beauty of colour and rendered with a charming grace of line. His paintings capture the picturesque and romantic aspect of his subject and at the same time display an inspirational power. his workmansip can only be described as superb. // Many would argue that Wilson with his fine, sound worksmanship (in a style which, Carlton Alfred Smith seperately considered) has not been matched by many later watercolour artists with the same amount of truth and value.'

1904 - 1904