Arthur Hughes (1830-1915)
Arthur Hughes was born in London on 27
January, 1830. He studied under Alfred Stevens at the Somerset House School of Design, and in 1847, at the Royal Academy.
In 1850, he read a copy of The Germ, the short-lived journal of the Pre-Raphaelites, and was converted to their philosophy.
He collaborated on the painting at the Oxford Union with Dante Gabriel Rossetti.
Hughes produced his best art in the decade of the 1850s. Some of his best works are a series of pictures of
lovers in nature scenes featuring clinging ivy on old trees.
He was an extremely sensitive and private man. He withdrew from the pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood's sessions
in 1858 and moved with his family to the outskirts of London. But he continued to be one of their strongest adherents.
As well as being a painter, Hughes was one of the more successful Pre-Raphaelite illustrators, drawing many pictures
for the illustrated magazines and books of the 1860s and onwards. In 1872, he worked with Rossetti's sister, Christina
Rossetti, illustrating her book of children's verse, Sing Song.
Hughes continued to exhibit at the Royal Academy until 1903. He was awarded a Civil List pension in 1912 and
died in Kew Green on 12 December 1915.
His Sir Galahad hangs in Manchester.
