James Aumonier NEAC RI ROI (9 April 1832–4 October 1911) was an English landscape painter, and one of the first members of the New English Art Club, elected in 1886.

Born in Camberwell, Aumonier was brought up in Highgate and High Barnet. At fourteen, he started attending evening classes, first at the Birkbeck Institution, then known as the Mechanics' Institute, and subsequently at South Kensington, where he found employment as a designer of calicoes in a London firm.

 

In 1891 Aumonier visited Venice and the Venetian Alps. He became associate of the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours in 1876, and was one of the original members of the Institute of Oil Painters and the New English Art Club.

 

In 1889 he was awarded a gold medal for watercolour in Paris, and a bronze medal for oil painting at Adelaide. He also received a silver medal at the Brussels exhibition in 1897. There was an exhibition of his watercolour drawings at the Leicester Galleries in 1908, and another of his work in oils as well at the Goupil Gallery in March 1912.
Aumonier exhibited for the first time at the Royal Academy in 1871, continuing his work on calico until after 1873, when Sir Newton Mappin purchased his painting ‘An English Cottage Home’ which was shown at the Royal Academy.


He concentrated on peaceful English countryside scenes, especially with autumn tints or during late afternoon. His paintings included ‘When the Tide is Out’, ‘The Silver Lining of the Cloud’ (both in the Royal Academy in 1895), ‘In the Fen Country’, ‘The Old Sussex Farmstead’, and ‘Sunday Evening. Sheep Washing’ which was in the Chantrey Bequest Collection at the Tate which also owned his painting ‘Black Mountains’.


Aumonier exhibited his landscape ‘A Sussex Hayfield’ at the third annual exhibition held at the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh in 1898/9.


Collections

  • Bolton Museum and Art Gallery, UK
  • Bury Art Museum,UK
  • Gallery, UK Oldham, UK
  • Grundy Art Gallery, UK
  • Leeds Art Gallery, Leeds Museums and Galleries, UK
  • Manchester Art Gallery, UK
  • National Museum Cardiff, Wales, UK
  • National Trust, UK
  • Standen Russell-Cotes Art Gallery & Museum, UK
  • Shipley Art GalleryThe Potteries Museum & Art Gallery, UK
  • Tate Britain, London,UK
  • The Whitaker, UK
  • Touchstones Rochdale, UK
  • Victoria Art Gallery, Bath Spa, UK
  • Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, UK

 

Acknowledgements and further resources