Fred Morgan
(1856 – 1927)
Attributed to Fred Morgan
This is an oil painting on canvas in an original Victorian frame. The painting size is 20′ x 15′. The title is “Gathering Plums”. This painting was a planed as SSU frontispiece in the early 20thC, research is on going to find the Book that displayed this image. There is a FM monogram in pencil on the rear of the stretcher.
Born in London, Morgan was an English painter of portraits, animals, domestic and country scenes. He became famous for his idyllic genre scenes of family country life and childhood scenes, using his own children at various ages in many of his paintings. Among his titles are “An Apple Gathering” and “Gathering Nuts”. He was commonly known as Fred Morgan. At the age of fourteen he was taken out of school by his father John Morgan RBA (1823 – 1886) who then tutored him in art. At the age of 16, while still studying with his father, his first painting, “The Rehearsal”, was exhibited at the Royal Academy. After a hiatus of several years, his paintings were shown there regularly. For a while he worked as a portrait artist for an Aylesbury photographer, – this training proved to be crucial as it taught him how to observe closely and to give the greatest attention to detail.
For many years, starting in 1874, Thomas Agnew and Sons purchased all the work he produced. Over this period he painted some of his most popular works. Most of his painting was done in the village of Shere close to Guildford, (a well-known retreat for artists) and near by Normandy. Morgan exhibited at Royal Academy (62), British Institute, Suffolk Street, Fine Art Society, Glasgow Institute of Fine Arts (20), Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool (27) Manchester City Art Gallery (36), Royal Society of Oil painters (64), Arthur Tooth and Sons Gallery (6). Works are in the Leeds and Sheffield Art Galleries and in the Walker Art gallery Liverpool.