William Harris Weatherhead


William


Painter of Genre 1843 - 1911

William Harris Weatherhead was a London watercolour and genre painter who began exhibiting at the Royal Academy in 1862.

 Titles exhibited at the Royal Academy;

1862 - The Market Girl

1867 - Outskirts of the common

1868 - The Reaper

1870 - La Penserosa, A rustic study

1871 - The Lace Maker

1872 - Churning, "Ye are no' spinning, Jenny", Viola

1874 - A Puritan

1875 - The Young Wife

1876 - "Come Along!"

1877 - L'Immortelle, La priere d'une vierge, Crumbs from a poor man's table, neighbours

1878 - Kept in, A call to arms, Knitting

1879 - A Bachelor

1884 - Weary life

1895 - A Puitan

 He went on to exhibit at the British Institution, Suffolk Street, and elsewhere.

He was a member of the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolour from 1885 until he resigned in 1903.

A watercolour entitled ‘From my Highland Laddie’ is in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

The Sydney Museum has ‘Looking Out for a Shot’.

Some examples of the Paintings of Willam Harris Weatherhead

    William left behind a Log Book of all his paintings created and sold.

From 1862 there is a log of every painting produced which includes a Title, Size, Medium (Watercolour or oil), Hours spent, cost of materials, and brief notes (sitters, Langham study). A study of the logbook, typing the whole thing into an excel file, reveals some recurring patterns. When a Large exhibition painting was created and held for a number of years, then a number of smaller copies are made from the original. Should the original get sold (always at a far larger price than smaller works), then for his favourite works, another large size painting is created.

The table below shows a steady transfer from Oils to Watercolours throughout his life.

Year Oils Watercolours Total Found
1862 30 0 30 0
1863 16 0 16 0
1864 12 0 12 0
1865 14 2 16 0
1866 17 1 18 0
1867 28 3 31 0
1868 31 0 31 0
1869 29 1 30 0
1870 53 0 53 0
1871 46 7 53 0
1872 35 14 49 0
1873 28 19 47 1
1874 28 17 45 0
1875 29 17 46 2
1876 29 9 38 0
1877 15 20 35 0
1878 20 13 33 0
1879 20 11 31 2
1880 19 14 33 0
1881 17 16 33 2
1882 18 15 33 0
1883 17 11 28 0
1884 7 17 24 0
1885 5 11 16 0
1886 3 14 17 6
1887 3 15 18 1
1888 1 13 14 4
1889 0 15 15 0
1890 0 11 11 0
1891 1 9 10 0
1892 0 16 16 1
1893 2 13 15 2
1894 1 14 15 0
1895 3 15 18 1
1896 3 16 19 1
1897 3 13 16 1
1898 1 7 8 0

At the age of 55 in 1899, there is a title entered for the last picture "When the lifeboats out", this was later crossed out.