HENRY SILKSTONE HOPWOOD RSW 1860 – 1914
Hopwood was born at Markfield near Leicester, but moved to Manchester as a child. He became an apprentice lithographer and studied at Manchester School of Art.
Despite living a long way from the sea, it was a subject which fascinated him and he travelled the world as a deck hand for a while. When he returned, he enrolled at the Acade´mie Julian and subsequently at the Antwerp Academy, attending both institutions at the same time as Friedenson with whom he became firm friends. Soon after his return to England he joined Friedenson in Staithes and later had a house built in Hinderwell.
Hopwood also became a great friend of Fred Mayor, staying with him in Montreuil-sur-Mer and joining him to stay with Spence Ingall in Tangiers. He
encouraged Laura and Harold Knight to accompany him to Holland. Also like Mayor, Hopwood was an adventurous and experimental artist, especially in the earlier days of his career when he worked primarily in oils. His North African paintings are exceptionally vibrant and lively, his use of pure colour sometimes bordering on abstraction. Light was of paramount importance to him. His
watercolours are beautifully crafted, often utilising damp paper so that the colours seem to merge with one another to create a sense of harmony.
One of his 1894 Royal Academy exhibits, Industry, was bought for the Nation by the Chantrey bequest for the Tate Gallery (Tate Britain). He also has works in
public collections in Leeds, Leicester, Liverpool and Whitby public galleries and in the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Hopwood was a founder member of the Staithes Art Club in 1901 and elected Chairman at its first meeting. He had previously been elected an Associate of the Royal Society of Painters in Water Colours in 1896 and became a full Member in 1908. In addition to exhibiting there, he exhibited at the Royal Society of Artists Birmingham, the Fine Art Society, the Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts, the Walker Gallery Liverpool, Leicester Gallery, Manchester City Art Gallery, the Royal Academy and the Yorkshire Union of Artists of which he was a Vice
President.
Bibliography
Staithes Group Centenary Exhibition, Rosamund Jordan 2003
The Staithes Group, Peter Phillips, Phillips and Sons, Marlow1993
The Yorkshire Union of Artists 1888 – 1922, Dennis Child, Leeds Philosophical and
Literary Society Ltd, Leeds 2001
The Dictionary of British Artists 1880 – 1940, J. Johnson & A. Greutzner, Antique
Collectors’ Club, Woodbridge 1976
© Rosamund Jordan 2005
