Walter Ernest Webster | Impressionist Figurative painter

Walter Ernest Webster (1878-1959) was a British Impressionist - figurative, portrait and still life artist in oil who exhibited at all the major British art institutions.

He was awarded a bronze medal at the Paris Salon in 1912, and won silver medals there in 1913 and 1914, and a gold medal in 1931.

He exhibited at the Royal Academy, Royal Institute of Painters in Oils, Royal Institute of Paints in Watercolours, Fine Art Society, Paris Salon and elsewhere.

Works by him are in several public collections.

He lived in London.

Webster was born in Manchester and studied at the Royal College of Art and Royal Academy Schools.

Having once attended the Royal Academy Schools, Webster started exhibiting works at the Royal Academy, and continued to exhibit there almost every year until his death in May 1959.

He also exhibited at the Royal Institute of Oil Painters, Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolors, Royal Glasgow Institute and the Paris Salon.

Even while a student, Webster began to work for magazines, building up a fair practice.

He produced illustrations for the front covers of several publications including "Ladies' Home Journal" and "Etude".

Many of these reflected the Art Deco style of the period.

He also produced illustrations for books, including: eight colour plates for "Champion" by John Colin Dane (1907); four colour plates for "King of the Air: or, To Morocco on an Aeroplane" (1907) by Herbert Strang; four colour plates for "For Treasure Bound" by Harry Collingwood (1910).

He was elected a member of both the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours (RI) and the Royal Institute of Oil Painters (ROI) in 1920 and of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters (RP) in 1921.

In 1937 he was elected Vice-President of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters.

His obituary in The Times states that he was deeply influenced by Boucher and Chardin and that many of his pieces have an eighteenth-century flavour.