Benjamin Williams Leader

Benjamin Williams Leader (actually Benjamin Leader Williams) RA ( born March 12, 1831 in Worcester, † March 22, 1923 in Surrey ) was an English landscape painter. His work mainly includes views from Worcestershire, Wales and Surrey and of the Thames, also from Scotland, where he stayed several times in the course of his life.

Life

Leader attended the Royal Grammar School Worcester. He then worked as a draftsman in the engineering office of his father, who was an avid amateur painter, and he often accompanied on his trips to the River Severn. He also finished in this time evening classes at the Worcester School of Design.

In 1854 Leader visited the Royal Academy of Arts in London, where he is in his free time already extensively devoted himself to landscape painting. After just one year his picture Cottage Children blowing bubbles was approved by the Academy for exhibition; an American art lovers paid later for the considerable sum of £ 50 From this time on Leader was represented until 1922 every summer with his works at exhibitions of the Academy.

Without complete his studies, Leader had increased a few years after his first commercial success selling image. Many of his best pictures came here through the art trade directly into the hands of private art collectors and have never been shown publicly. Among the best known during his lifetime works include: In the Evening Shall there be light and February Fill Dyke.

From 1898 was Leader full member of the Royal Academy of Arts.