Philip Gilbert Hamerton (1834-1894)

Philip Hamerton was born near Oldham but spent most of his early life in Burnley and attended Burnley Grammar School. Although he was both an artist and writer, he is best remembered as an art critic, (see his entry in the wikipedia).

There are two oil paintings by him in the collection, created after he moved to Sens in Burgundy, France, in 1861. He later gave up oil painting and concentrating on writing. In 1869, he started an artistic periodical, 'The Portfolio', which set high standards in its innovative use of illustrations. He contributed a series of papers entitled 'The Unknown River - an etcher's voyage of discovery', using his own illustrations and eight of these are now in Towneley's watercolour collection ( waco332 ).

The Prints collection also contains a set of etchings and descriptive notes, which Hamerton gave to Burnley Mechanics Institute in 1891.

There are copies of four books by him in the Towneley Library

• The Etcher's Handbook (1875)
• The life of J. M. W. Turner, R. A. (1879)
• Man in Art. Studies in religious and historical art, portrait and genre (1892)

Philip Gilbert Hamerton - an autobiography 1834-1858 and a memoir by his wife 1858-1894' published in 1897.