(1786 - 1863)
William
Mulready was born in Ennis on April 1st, 1786. His family moved to Dublin
within a year or so of his birth and in 1792 again moved to London, where
the Mulready household resided at Compton Street, Soho, where his father
continued his trade as a leather-breeches maker. If William had any brothers
or sisters they must have died at a young age as there is no mention of
them later. For a child of his circumstances, young William received a very
thorough education before he undertook serious introductions in artistic
matters.Mulready’s talent was cultivated initially by the painter John Graham, and then by the sculptor Thomas Banks, so that, at the age of fourteen, he was admitted as a student to the Royal Academy School in 1800. Coming under the influence of William John Varley, he acted as a student-tutor to some other young hopefuls in the school that Vorley ran at his home. It was there that Mulready met and quickly married Varley’s sister Elizabeth. However, the marriage was not to last: the couple parted in 1808 and never lived together again.
Mulready’s early pictures were mostly landscape, close in style to those of Constable, and close in subject matter also. His well-known “Landscape with Cottages” is typical of that time. Later he turned to subject painting in which he was to excel.
Depictions of simple incidents or scenes from everyday life of village people were what he mainly dealt with. He was higly successful producing pictures which had an obvious appeal in Victorian times and among his best known works are “Idle Boys”, “The Farriers Shop” and “The Last Inn”.
In 1815 he was elected a member of the Royal Academy being only 31 years of age and now accepted by his peers as a worthy representative of that prestigious body. He was also honoured in France being given the Legion of Honour for paintings he sent to the Paris International Exhibition of 1815.
As a book illustrator he achieved certain fame, particularly through his drawings of textures for an edition of Goldsmith’s “The Vicar of Wakefield”. Mulready was slow, careful and meticulous in his approach to art and often made many perparatory sketches before committing himself to a final canvas. It is estimated that his output rarely exceeded more than two or three pictures a year.
William Mulready died on the 7th of July, 1863 in Bayswater, London, and is buried in Kensal Green cemetary where a monument to his memory was erected by his friends.