Henry Perlee Parker (1785–1873) was an artist who specialised in portrait and genre paintings. He made his mark in Newcastle upon Tyne in the 1820s through patronage by wealthy landowners and through paintings of large-scale events of civic pride. Over a period of forty years his work was exhibited at the Royal Academy and the British Institution in London. Coastal scenes of fisherfolk and smugglers were a popular specialism. Through the distribution and sale of mezzotint prints of subjects such as William and Grace Darling Going to the Rescue of the SS Forfarshire, Parker became one of the north-east's best-known nineteenth-century artists. In Newcastle upon Tyne he was central to the setting-up of a Northern Academy for the Arts. Later, in Sheffield, he taught drawing at the Wesleyan Proprietary Grammar School, and in his later years he lived in Hammersmith, London. He had a large family and was married three times.
Early life Henry Perlee Parker (1795–1873), portrait and genre painter, was born at Plymouth Dock, Devonport, on 15 March 1795. He was the son of Robert and Mary Elizabeth Parker – the name ‘Perlee’ comes from his paternal grandmother, who was French. His father was a teacher of ‘marine and mechanical drawing’.Parker, Henry Perlee An Artist’s Narrative - an autobiography written in the third person with a final section dictated to his daughter on 'his death bed' i.e.1873. The manuscript is in the Bodleian Library (MS.Eng.misc.e.654). It was published in six sections in The Newcastle Weekly Chronicle between 3 November 1894 and 8 December 1894. The manuscript was extensively drawn upon by Richard Welford in a biographical piece published in the Newcastle Weekly Chronicle in 22 August 1891 and then in a revised form in Welford, Richard (1895) Men of Mark ‘Twixt Tyne and Tweed Vol. 3. London: Walter Scott Ltd. After leaving school, Henry was considered for training as a tailor, then was employed in a coachbuilder's workshop before he set himself up as a portrait painter. In the early 1810s he accompanied Charles Sandoe Gilbert (1760–1831) on sketching tours of CornwallC. S. Gilbert’s An Historical Survey of the County of Cornwall was published at Plymouth Dock in 1817, with a second volume ‘to which is added a complete heraldry of the same, with numerous engravings’ being published in 1820. Both volumes were completed under the patronage of the Duke of Northumberland. and saw paintings in the private collections of noblemen. He became acquainted with smugglers on the Cornish coast.Parker, Henry Perlee 'An Artist’s Narrative'
In 1815 Parker married Amy Morfey, and following a stay with relatives in Sunderland they decided to move to Newcastle upon Tyne as Parker had taken ‘such a liking to that town he resolved to try his fortune there’.Parker, Henry Perlee 'An Artist's Narrative' With five pounds between them, artist and wife found lodgings. He earned money by teaching drawing, painting window blinds, and executing small portraits on tin. By the autumn of 1816 their first child, Mary Perlee Parker, was born.
Portraits and Fancy Pictures Newcastle – made wealthy from mining, shipbuilding and engineering – was undergoing a huge expansion of population at this time. Parker was aware of the importance of self-publicity for an artist and the need to ‘network’. He displayed examples of his work in a prominent shop window with the notice: ‘Likenesses done in this style at one guinea each.’Parker, Henry Perlee 'An Artist’s Narrative' Over the next few years seventy commissions followed, enabling the artist to move to more respectable apartments in Pilgrim Street.
In addition to portraits, Parker produced ‘fancy pictures’ for broker's shops.Parker, Henry Perlee 'An Artist’s Narrative' David Mannings defines ‘fancy pictures’ as being ‘contemporary genre pictures of sentimental realism, in which the artist’s own whimsy played a substantial part'.Mannings, David. Fancy Picture. Grove Art Online (2003). Parker was a contemporary of David Wilkie (1785–1841), a particularly successful exponent of this type of droll depiction of everyday situations and someone whose work at times provided an inspiration. That Parker’s painting Dead Game was chosen for exhibition at Royal Academy in London in 1817Graves, Algernon (1906). The Royal Academy of Arts: A Complete Dictionary of Contributors and Their Work from its Foundation in 1769 to1904, Vol.6. London: George Bell & Sons. p. 56. Reprinted Bath: Kingsmead Reprints, 1989, Vol. 3. added to his artistic standing.
Characters of Newcastle
‘Being a young man of good address and prepossessing appearance and developing a vigorous and taking style of painting figure subjects, Mr. Parker received from the people of Tyneside flattering encouragement and support.'Welford, Richard (1895) Men of Mark ‘Twixt Tyne and Tweed Vol. 3. London: Walter Scott Ltd. p. 249. Eccentric Characters of Newcastle (aka Hell’s Kitchen),At the time of the Laing Art Gallery's Henry Perlee Parker exhibition in 1969 the whereabouts of this painting was unknown; however, in 1986 it was sold by Sotheby’s and more recently (in 2004) by Cheffins, Cambridge. from about 1817, was one of Parker’s best-known early paintings. It shows fourteen ‘eccentrics’ – locally known characters, mainly paupers from the streets of the Quayside area of Newcastle – assembled in the Flying Horse drinking house. The painting was bought for 20 guineas by Charles John Brandling (1769–1826), an influential landowner and coal magnate.
Newcastle had a reputation for the artistic merit of its book illustration and printing industries, and Parker became acquainted with two exponents: Thomas Bewick (1753–1828) and Thomas Miles Richardson(1784–1848). An engraving by G. Armstrong of Eccentric Characters of Newcastle 'became exceedingly popular'.Welford, Men of Mark. p. 250. When Brandling became MP for Northumberland, in 1820, he commission a portrait by Parker that was engraved.See here for the proof copy in the British Museum. Reproductive engraving had a double value in that it brought artwork within the means of the emerging middle classes and it widened the artist's reputation.Hamilton, James. A Strange Business: Making Art and Money in Nineteenth-Century Britain. London: Atlantic Books. p. 21. Brandling commissioned further work over the next few years, and most importantly the relationship gave Parker an entrée into Tyneside society.
Making a Mark On 19 July 1821 Newcastle's town council – led by the mayor, George Forster – organised a celebration of the coronation of George IV that culminated in the supply of free wine for the populace distributed from a fountain.Mackenzie, Eneas (1827), ’Historical Events: 1783–1825’, in Historical Account of Newcastle-upon-Tyne Including the Borough of Gateshead. Newcastle upon Tyne. pp. 66–88. British History Online, accessed 18 April 2019. Parker's large commemorative painting The Sandhill at the Celebration of the Coronation of George IV captured the excitement and mayhem of the event, with local dignitaries being identifiable.
In the following February the painting was selected for exhibition at the British Institution for Promoting the Fine Arts in the United Kingdom (also known as the British Gallery) in Pall Mall, London. While some of the London press commented on Parker's ‘uncultivated style’, it was also seen as being ‘a remarkable picture’ that ‘reminds us of that master of the satirical art, Hogarth'.Town Talk, 3 February 1822; Literary Chronicle, 23 February 1822 – both quoted in Parker, H. P. (1835) Critiques on paintings by H. P. Parker ... together with ... etchings shewing the compositions, &c. Newcastle upon Tyne. pp. 1–2. Parker’s painting had put Newcastle and its corporation on the map, and it was purchased by the mayor and the corporation for 100 guineas.Plymouth and Dock Telegraph, 1 June 1822, quoted in Parker, Critiques. p. 3.
Parker and Thomas Miles Richardson formed a close friendship, and in response to the absence of public exhibiting space in Newcastle they planned an annual art exhibition. Drawing from their experience of London exhibiting organisations, it was to be called the Northumberland Institution for the Promotion of the Fine Arts, and in September 1882 the first exhibition was held, in Richardson’s modest studios at Brunswick Place.Hedley, Gill (early 1980s). ‘Artists in Newcastle upon Tyne 1820–1900’. Unpublished booklet. A committee ‘consisting of twenty artists and connoisseurs’ was established, with Richardson as treasurer and Parker as secretary.Mackenzie, Historical Account, pp. 575–90. One of the ‘connoisseurs’ on the committee was the local naturalist Henry Hewitson, and he commissioned Parker to paint a picture of Hewitson's circle on an expedition, known as The Cullercoats Party.Also known as A Party Embarking For a Cruize from Cullercoats, this work has been dated as c.1818; however, the presence of Robert Bell (mayor of Newcastle in 1822) and that the earliest newspaper reviews date from 1823 make 1822 more likely. The attractive seaside setting and identifiable documentary details make the work characteristics of Parker's now mature style.
Broadening His Appeal
While paintings of local subjects had considerable appeal, there was a danger of such work being considered too parochial. Parker turned to the novels of Walter Scott for inspiration for dramatic incidents. Davie Deans Rejecting the Advice of Saddletree and Butler, drawn from Scott's Heart of Midlothian (first published 1818), was exhibited at the British Institution in 1823,Graves, Algernon (1908). The British Institution, 1806–1867: A Complete Dictionary of Contributors and their Work from the Foundation of the Institution. London: George Bell. p. 414. from where it was purchased. Who’s [sic] Turn Next? or Vacant Chair, a whimsical work ‘in the style and manner of Wilkie’,Carlisle Patriot, 2 October 1824, quoted in Parker, Critiques. p. 8. was exhibited at Royal Academy in 1824Graves, The Royal Academy of Arts: A Complete Dictionary of Contributors. p. 56. – and bought by Brandling. Comparisons with Wilkie were also made in relation to The Village Raffle, exhibited the following year at the British Institution (where purchased by Hewitson).
With an expanding family, Parker's livelihood came from portraiture – human and animal. A dog's head was painted ‘the exact size of life’; short-horned cattle he depicted had won prizes at the Wooler Fair; Whiskey was a favourite pony of the Rev. R. H. Brandling, and T. Cook, Esq. was shown on his favourite hunter.Parker, Critiques. pp. 77, 75, 80, 74.
The Porteus Mob Breaking into the Tolbooth, Edinboro’ was, artistically, Parker's most ambitious work, and contemporary newspaper critiques were highly complementary: ‘Composed, as the picture entirely is, of the gradations of two colours, the effect is most surprising, and the judgement with which the group is arranged, and the beautifully energetic activity which pervades it in every part, are among the triumphs of modern skill’.Durham County Advertiser, 11 June 1825, quoted in Parker, Critiques. p. 11. The Tyne Mercury made comparison with the ‘genius of Rembrandt’ and felt that it was ‘the finest picture ever painted by this industrious and rising artist'.Tyne Mercury 31 May 1825, quoted in Parker, Critiques pp. 8–10. The Porteus Mob … was exhibited at the British Institution in 1826 and at the newly established Scottish Academy in 1827 – yet despite critical success it remained unsold.
‘Smuggler Parker’