George Elgar Hicks: The Artist and His Work
Rosamond Allwood reviews the 1983 exhibition at London's Geffrye Museum.
The exhibition of George Elgar Hick’s work was inspired by research into Changing Homes , a wedding picture of 1862 purchased by the Geffrye Museum to illustrate various aspects of middle-class Victorian family life, and to complement the museum's holdings of furniture of this period. Such highly detailed scenes of contemporary life are fascinating to us today, as much for the wealth of documentary information they provide as for their undoubted artistic qualities of colouring and execution. During the late 1850s and 1860s Hicks produced an important series of paintings on specific London events, including 'Dividend Day' at the Bank of England, the Genera) Post Office just before closing time, Billingsgate market early in the morning and an orphan election at the London Tavern. These have all been traced, and are displayed together for the first time with many other works by Hicks, and additional family material including his handwritten notebooks.
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