John William Godward

John William Godward ( born August 9, 1861 in Wimbledon, † December 13, 1922 in London) was a British painter of the Neoclassicism.

Life

Godward was the eldest son of John Godward and his wife Sarah. He came from a respected London officials family that his desire to become an artist, disapproved. After his training as an architectural draftsman, he was promoted by Sir Lawrence Alma -Tadema and introduced from 1887 on occasion of the Royal Academy of Arts. Together with Henry Ryland, he led a painting workshop in London. In 1904, he traveled for the first time to Italy, where he moved in 1912 with one of his models in the inhabited by artists Villa Strohl - distance near the gardens of the Villa Borghese in Rome. In 1919 he returned for health reasons, returned to England and lived with his younger brother Charles Arthur. 1922 Godward died after a suicide attempt.

His already estranged family he was so ashamed that she destroyed all his papers and photographs about his suicide. As a reason for his suicide, he should have stated that the world was not big enough for him and Pablo Picasso.

His most famous painting Sweet Nothings is located in the collection of Andrew Lloyd Webber.