Born in Australia and brought up in Kirkcudbright in southwest Scotland, Hornel trained as a painter in Edinburgh and Antwerp. Through his friendship with George Henry, the two artists became important members of the Glasgow Boys, promoting the second, highly coloured decorative phase of the Boys between about 1880 and 1896. His masterpiece, Summer, acquired by Liverpool Corporation in 1892 amid intense controversy, propelled Hornel into the limelight and led to an invitation to exhibit his work in Brussels in 1893 alongside that of Rodin, Signac and Toulouse-Lautrec. In 1893-94 Henry and Hornel spent thirteen months painting in Japan; Hornel's subsequent exhibition in Glasgow was a triumph. His instantly recognisable later work of children playing in woods carpeted with snowdrops or wild hyacinths or among the burnet roses above the sea shore remain as popular as ever with collectors and the public alike. Contents: The Great Adventure 1856-1866; Student Days 1866-1885; Glasgow Boys 1885-1886; A Cloud no bigger than a Man's Hand 1887-1889; The Persian Carpet School 1889-189; Summer 1892; A Reed Shaken by the Wind 1893-1895; The Music of the Woods 1895-1906; The Later Years 1907-1933 AUTHOR: Bill Smith was a director of Robert Fleming hCo., the London merchant bank, and also looked after its collection of Scottish paintings for 12 years. He has written a biography of the Scottish painter, Sir D Y Cameron (1992), and of the financier, Robert Fleming (2000). SELLING POINTS - One of finest colourist painters Scotland has produced - Artist featured in Pioneering Painters: The Glasgow Boys, acclaimed exhibition in both Glasgow pLondon 2010-2011 ILLUSTRATIONS 60 colour 910 b/w illustrations *
