Lot 1466: ALEXANDER MANN (1853 - 1908) - ORCHARD AT BLEWBERRY

ALEXANDER MANN (1853 - 1908)
ORCHARD AT BLEWBERRY
oil on canvas, signed
50cm x 65cm
Label verso: Fine Arts Society
Povenance: purchased from the collection of Lady Pinkerton, 1983
Note: In 1877 he went to Paris and enrolled at the Académie Julian, and then studied under Mihály Munkácsy and from 1881 to 1885 under Carolus-Duran. From 1883-93 Mann exhibited in London at the Royal Academy, Royal Institute of Oil Painters, Fine Art Society, New Gallery, Ridley Art Club, New English Art Club and Society of British Artists, a society that appointed James McNeill Whistler its President in 1886. At the same year he was invited to become the first Scottish member of the New English Art Club and was joined by several of his friends, notably John Lavery, Thomas Millie Dow of the Glasgow Boys and Norman Garstin.
Influenced by the Hague school and by Jules Bastien-Lepage, his picture A Bead Stringer, Venice gained an honorable mention at the Salon in 1885. After a public controversy over this painting when it was exhibited at the Royal Glasgow Institute, Mann settled in England, at West Hagbourne, Berkshire, and later in the neighboring village of Blewbury, where he painted a series of views of the Downs and portraits of country people. Mann traveled extensively in Britain, paying several visits to the coast in Angus and Fife, and to Walberswick, Suffolk. Mann was buried at Blewbury Parish Church, Oxfordshire.