Thomas Somerscales
Somerscales Thomas ( born October 29, 1842 in Kingston upon Hull, † June 27, 1927 ) was an English artist and mariner.
Somerscales was born in Kingston upon Hull, the son of an English captain. Already in his early youth, he drew much.
In 1863 he was hired as a teacher of the Royal Navy of England on the training ship Cumberland. In the following five years he served in the same function on four other warships, most recently on the HMS Zealous.
In the summer of 1869 he fell ill with malaria in Panama. He had his ship, therefore, in Valparaíso ( Chile) leave and was discharged from the Royal Navy due to the severity of his illness.
During his stay in Chile, he devoted himself alongside his work as a teacher to painting. He made a variety of landscapes. He put three of these paintings at the international art exhibition in 1872 in Santiago de Chile and won a silver medal.
1875 saw Somerscales with on the Chilean corvette Esmeralda, as the ship several hours struggling against the sea during a heavy storm before Valparaíso. This experience impressed Somerscales so much that he predominantly anfertigte paintings of ships from then on.
In particular, he produced an immense number of paintings representing Seekampfszenen from the Salpeter between Peru and Chile. Especially famous was a painting depicting the sinking of the Esmeralda by the Peruvian Huascar Rammmonitor the naval battle before Iquique on May 21, 1879. After Salpeter be Somerscales focused on scenes from the merchant shipping off the coast of South America.
1892 Somerscales return back to England and set up a year later for the first time a picture in the Royal Academy in London. Until 1928, reached a total of 28 paintings by Somerscales to the honor of being presented this prestigious site. In 1899 he painted one of his most famous works, which in turn had a Chilean motif on the topic: "Off Valparaíso ". In the years 1903, 1907, 1909 and 1912, he traveled to Chile more times until he finally returned to England in 1915.
His paintings can be seen today in Santiago de Chile in particular in the Tate Gallery, the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, in the Ferens Art Gallery, Kingston upon Hull and the Museum of Fine Arts (Museo de Bellas Artes).