Atkinson Grimshaw was born in 1836 in a back-to-back terrace house in Park Street (now demolished) to a low-earning working class family and was the oldest of subsequent brothers and sisters.
On leaving school at 14 he became a clerk with the Great Northern Railway Company. But in his spare time he began to paint.
Atkinson married his educated cousin and they lived for a while in Wortley. Tragically three of his then four children died and a fourth was ill. To the great consternation of his parents, but with the support of his wife, he gave up his job as a railway clerk to become a full-time artist.
He was sponsored in his early days by the Leeds Philosophical & Literary Society (which built and owned the original City Museum in Park Row, later transferring it to the Leeds Corporation in 1922). And largely because of the support from the LPLS he became known and eventually famous. The Victorians loved him and his pictures began to be sold well. He could then afford to move to a much larger property, a detached villa in Cliff Road in the up-market area of semi-rural Headingley Hill. The villa had a large garden with views towards Woodhouse Ridge from which he painted the surrounding area.
Atkinson became a prolific painter but he is most famous and remembered for his evocative scenes at night with light spilling from shop windows and gas streetlights and usually with a full moon shining on wet roads and footpaths. It has been said that “What Turner did for sunlight, Atkinson Grimshaw did for moonlight”. He is also known for his scenes of docks with moonlight shining on the water. He painted Glasgow, Liverpool, Thames and Leeds Dock.
Leeds City Art Gallery has some of his paintings, my personal favourite being that of Boar Lane with lit shop windows, gas lights and, of course, a moon shedding its light behind and over the roof of a shop. But perhaps the most memorable for me is his painting of Park Row which shows the former Leeds Museum before it was bombed in World War 2, the former magnificent Westminster Bank demolished in the philistine early 1960s and the former St Ann’s Cathedral in Cookridge Street. And, of course, with a shining moon.
The Park Row painting came up for auction in London in the early 1980s for £20,000. Its value now could be anything between a quarter to half a million and could be more. At the time, I chaired the Council’s Leisure Committee and I was keen that the Art Gallery bought it. They refused with excuses that it was not his best and that the paint was thin. Without my seeing the actual picture, I told them it was a historic picture of Leeds and that we must have it. After threatening to remove their purchase budget I got my way. Some while later, the Art Gallery staff asked visitors to name their favourite picture and Park Lane won!
When the former Leeds Mayor John Barron put up the money to purchase Roundhay Park (councils at the time could not spend more than £40,000) Atkinson painted three pictures of the park to raise its profile and they were very popular. A year later the Government removed that financial restriction on councils.
In 1870 as Atkinson Grimshaw became so popular and, therefore, wealthy, he and his family moved into Knostrop Hall in Hunslet (sadly demolished in 1960). He also bought a second property in Scarborough next to the Castle. There are half a dozen of his paintings, which he painted locally, in Scarborough Art Gallery.
Sadly, he and his family lived beyond their means and in 1880 bailiffs were called in. However, the Grimshaws managed to stay in the Hall until Atkinson’s death from liver cancer in 1893 at the young age of 57. He is buried in what was originally Woodhouse Cemetery which is now called St George’s Field and is part of the Leeds University campus. The LPLS has erected a blue plaque there.
Of his six surviving children, four became artists. One of them, Louis Grimshaw, painted a lovely picture of the Leeds Parish Church, now the Minster, in Kirkgate. It is in a similar style to that of his father but he used artistic licence to remove the railway bridge which would have obstructed the view.
Leeds City Art Gallery is holding an exhibition of Atkinson Grimshaw’s paintings which opens this coming November. Admission will be free although any voluntary donations to assist the Gallery would be welcome.
This post was written by Hon Alderwoman Elizabeth Nash
Image: Park Row by Atkinson Grimshaw. © Leeds Museums and Galleries (Leeds Art Gallery)
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