HENRY STACY MARKS (1829-1898)

848

Watercolour heightened with white

Signed with initials

9.00 cm wide   16.50 cm high

3.54 inches wide  6.50 inches high

A London genre and animal painter, watercolourist and illustrator. He studied in both London and Paris and exhibited at the Royal Academy and elsewhere from 1853. He was elected ARA in 1870 and became a full RA in 1878. His earlier works were usually historical and literary, especially Shakespearian and often humorous. Latterly he painted many carefully studied animal and bird pictures and was particularly fond of parrots.

Marks had three exhibitions in six years at the Fine Art Society in London, the first of which was Birds in Bond Street in 1889. He was a frequent visitor to London Zoo, “painting poultry” as a fellow RA put it. He was frequently approached by other curious visitors – he noted in his preface to the 1890 catalogue: “The most common remark I hear is, “Ah pretty creature! Don’t he seem to know he’s sitting for his picture?” and concluded “… I hope I may be excused, and not held too eccentric, in preferring to converse with a parrot for one hour, rather than with a politician for two”.

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