George Lawrence Bulleid | Victorian-Era painter

British painter🎨 George Lawrence Bulleid (1858-1933) was born in Glastonbury, Somerset in 1858, the son of a local solicitor and Councillor.

Bulleid joined the family firm but in 1881 but soon left to study at the Marylebone and West London School of Art under the instruction of the Principal, George Simpson.

As with so many Victorian artists of the time, he had a strong affection for classicism and antiquity, his early work would typically be of dark and sombre canvases with groups of figures arranged within an architectural structure, or contemplative individuals at moments of decision or classical melancholy.

In 1889, he became an Associate of the Royal Water Colour Society, and in the same year he returned to his native West Country, moving to Bradford on Avon nera Bath. There, he established a studio and toward the end of the 19th century, his work began to show the clear influence of the Pre-Raphaelites, their compositional style and use of strong, direct colour lending itself well to his favoured Neo-classical themes.

In later life, he explored more naturally observed themes, creating relaxed portraits and works of floral or quiet still life arrangements, sometimes in a manner inspired by the Dutch masters of the 17th century. George Bulleid died aged aged 75 in the Autumn of 1933.

Bulleid is best known as a painter of highly finished oil paintings and watercolours of subjects from classical antiquity, in the manner of Lawrence Alma-Tadema🎨 and Albert Moore🎨.

He also painted mythological subjects, floral still lives and portraits. Bulleid worked mainly in watercolour, and exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy, the Royal Watercolour Society, of which he was elected an associate member in 1889, and the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolors.

As Christopher Wood has written of Bulleid: "Although his range of subjects is narrow, consisting almost entirely of female figures in classical settings, the intense clarity of his vision, combined with an astonishing level of technical accomplishment, mark him out as much more than just another Alma-Tadema🎨 follower".