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MAITLAND, Paul - b. 1863 London, d. 1909 London - WGA

MAITLAND, Paul

(b. 1863 London, d. 1909 London)

English landscape painter, mainly of Kensington Gardens and the Chelsea Embankment in London, where he lived. He studied at the Royal College of Art and under Theodore Roussel. He was influenced by Whistler and in 1889 was one of the ‘London Impressionists’ with Sickert, Steer, and others. Exhibited in London at the Baillie, Paterson, Goupil and Grafton Galleries, also in Glasgow, Paris, Munich and Dresden. He was Art Examiner for the Board of Education in 1893-1908. As a hunchback, he lived a secluded life.

Flower Walk, Kensington Gardens
Flower Walk, Kensington Gardens by

Flower Walk, Kensington Gardens

Whistler’s followers included Theodore Roussel, Paul Maitland, Walter Richard Sickert and the young Wilson Steer - that is, the artists widely considered the leading British Impressionists. With Sidney Starr they split off from the New English Art Club. This sub-group used the label London Impressionists. The driving force was Sickert who outlined the task facing British Impressionism: to record the magic and poesy that lay all around in everyday life. London, the great metropolis, provided all the stimulating subject-matter that was necessary.

The concentration on London subject-matter was apparent in the work of Sickert, Starr, Roussel and the latter’s pupil Maitland. Urban problems resulting from 19th-century expansion in the cities - such as unemployment, poverty, child labour, alcoholism and prostitution - were almost totally absent from this art. The city was being viewed as a predominantly middle-class thing.

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