Ernest Townsend - Heatherleys and The Royal Academy

Heatherleys and The Royal Academy

Townsend's early promise was justified and eventually he left architecture altogether and embarked on a full-time course at the Heatherly School of Fine Art in London. He then moved to a five-year course at the Royal Academy Schools. He was enrolled as a student in the School of Painting at the Royal Academy from the 28th January until January 1907. Amongst his tutors at the Academy Schools were John Singer Sargent and Lawrence Alma-Tadema. His friends included Aubrey Beardsley, Alfred Munnings, Augustus John, and Laura Knight. Townsend exhibited 15 paintings at the Academy between 1910 and 1937, as shown below.

As an impecunious art student, he lived with his brother, William Paulson Townsend, who had become Design Master at the Royal School of Needlework and was an author and editor of various art publications. Ernest supplemented his income with design work for these magazines, in particular for the Art Worker's Quarterly.

In 1904 he won the Royal Academy's Landseer Scholarship for figure painting and in 1905 he won the Academy's Creswick prize for 'Willows and Weeds', a painting donated by his family after his death to the Derby Art Gallery.