James Aumonier - Artist

James Aumonier (1832–1911) was an English landscape painter born in Camberwell, London in 1832. He attended evening classes, first at the Birkbeck Institution, then known as the Mechanics' Institute, and subsequently at South Kensington. In 1891 Aumonier visited Venice and the Venetian Alps. He became associate of the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolours in 1876, and was one of the original members of the Institute of Oil Painters. In 1889 he was awarded a gold medal for water-colour in Paris, and a bronze medal for oil painting at Adelaide. He also received a silver medal at the Brussels exhibition in 1897. There was an exhibition of his watercolour drawings at the Leicester Galleries in 1908, and another of his work in oils as well at the Goupil Gallery in March 1912. Aumonier exhibited for the first time at the Royal Academy in 1871, in 1873 Sir Newton Mappin purchased a picture shown by him at the Royal Academy, An English Cottage; Home. He concentrated himself on peaceful scenes of the English countryside, especially with autumn tints or during late afternoon. His pictures included When the Tide is Out, The Silver Lining of the Cloud (both in the Royal Academy of 1895), In the Fen Country, The Old Sussex Farmstead, and Sunday Evening. Sheep Washing was in the Chantrey bequest collection at the Tate Gallery, which also owned his painting Black Mountains. Aumonier exhibited at the third annual exhibition held at the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh in 1898/1899 his landscape "A Sussex Hayfield". This is a fine example of the artist’s purely landscape work devoid of the sentimentality of figures that he often featured, and almost certainly an exhibited piece.