Ethel Walker - Early Life

Early Life

Walker was born on 9 June 1861 in Edinburgh, Scotland, the younger child of Arthur Walker (a Yorkshireman) and his second wife, Isabella (née Robertson). Her father was from a family of iron founders. Her secondary education was at Brondesbury, in London, where her drawing master, Hector Caffierti, helped bring out her artistic talents.

Following secondary school, Walker attended the Ridley School of Art. In 1880 she met fellow artist Clara Christian, and the two women began living, working and studying together. It was during this stage that she developed her strong interest in art . She attended Putney School of Art, and visited Madrid, where she made copies of Velazquez. She then attended the Westminster School of Art in London, where a then popular artist, Frederick Brown, was a teacher. Around 1893 she followed Brown to the Slade School of Art for further study . She would return to the Slade School in 1912 and 1916 to study fresco and tempera painting; and again in 1921 to study sculpture with James Havard Thomas.

Read more about this topic:  Ethel Walker

Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:

    Foolish prater, What dost thou
    So early at my window do?
    Cruel bird, thou’st ta’en away
    A dream out of my arms to-day;
    A dream that ne’er must equall’d be
    By all that waking eyes may see.
    Thou this damage to repair
    Nothing half so sweet and fair,
    Nothing half so good, canst bring,
    Tho’ men say thou bring’st the Spring.
    Abraham Cowley (1618–1667)

    All the lies and evasions by which man has nourished himself—civilization, in a word—are the fruits of the creative artist. It is the creative nature of man which has refused to let him lapse back into that unconscious unity with life which charactizes the animal world from which he made his escape.
    Henry Miller (1891–1980)