Severnvalley

Hello to all, new member, Worcester UK.

Looking for information about the English artist Sydney Herbert, believed 1854-1910, born Worcestershire.

I recently found a water colour sketch signed by him and would love to know more about the man and his life.

There's very little on the internet about him.

Fingers crossed someone might know ...

saintmarc

Sydney HERBERT (don't mistake him for Herbert [Adams] SIDNEY).
Genre and marines painter, born in Cheltenham 1854, died on 1914, april 22. Studied Art in South Kensington and then Paris. Exhibited from 1875 to 1887 in Suffolk street and New watercolor Society. Member of the Society of Biblical Archeology. (Benezit ictionnaire des peintres...)
With his name in Google search you can access to a Google book (English and Irish artists in public collections...or something like that) with a list of his works in some places in the United Kingdom, and certainly the curators of these collections could give you some complementary informations.

Edit :? funny face in place of a D?

Hercules Brabazon

I don't know what you've found for so far but a google books search for "herbert sydney" (reversing the names often gives better results from reference works) turns up his address in "The Years Art " for 1893 and 1898. It's given as "Carlton Lodge, Cheltenham." He doesn't turn up in the 1881 or 1901 census results though.

edit: Probably the author of this work http://books.google.co.uk/books?um=1&q="egyptian+art+and+its+influence"+sydn ey&btnG=Search+Books

He also made several characterful contributions to this edition of "Notes and Queries"
http://www.archive.org/stream/s11not...duoft_djvu.txt

Severnvalley

Thank you so much. You have given me plenty to go on.

The Cheltenham connection is so interesting because that's where the painting mentioned in my opening post came from. It's not dated but I'm now wondering if it could be an early sketch of his that's been in this region all of this time.

It's nothing particularly special, just a simple landscape but in his unmistakable style and with his signature.

I don't get the impression that he was a particularly prolific painter but could be well wrong.

Anyway, if anyone else could add to this I would be most grateful and thanks again.

Hercules Brabazon

He was art master at Cheltenham Ladies' College

There's an obituary of him in Notes and Queries for 1914, p380. The full text is only available with a subscription, but from Google Books I managed to extract these rather woeful sentences:

Herbert died suddenley on the 22nd ult. in a tramcar, returning from Cleeve Hill to Cheltenham after a day's sketching in the neighbourhood"

....the art master of the Cheltenham Ladies' College under Miss Beale, but under a new regime he was displaced, and left wholly dependent on private tuition and the sale of his pictures .....

An interesting example of his work here
http://www.bonhams.com/cgi-bin/publi...eSectionN o=1

As a slight aside, I've only just realised though the big auction houses - Bonhams, Sothebys, Christies - all have detailed databases of past sales, the contents don't turn up with a Google search - you have to search them individually.

Severnvalley

That really is a tremendous piece of detective work - much obliged!