Walter Frederick Osborne
Walter Frederick Osborne was born in Dublin in 1859, the second son of an animal painter, William Osborne. His family lived in Castlewood Avenue, Rathmines and he may have spent some time in his father's studio before attending the Royal Hibernian Academy Schools in Dublin. He also seems to have attended classes in the Metropolitan School of Art. In 1881, he won the Taylor scholarship for £50, which enabled him to study abroad. He arrived in Antwerp in 1881 and registered as a pupil in Verlat's 'Natuur' class at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts. An influential teacher, Verlat was a genre and animal painter; perhaps it was because his father was that Osborne felt drawn to Verlat's class.
Two years later, Osborne travelled to Brittany where worked at Pont-Aven, Dinan and Quimperlé where the 'plein-air' style of painting associated with the French artist Jules Bastien-Lepage was pervasive among the younger painters at the time. Osborne left Brittany for England around 1884 and there worked in several small rural communities, painting landscapes and genre scenes: first at Walberswick and then at Evesham with Edward Stott and Nathaniel Hill where he developed a more lucid naturalism. During these years, Osborne wavered between precise naturalism and the looser sketch-like handling of Whistler. His subject matter also varied between scenes of rural life and coastal genre. Osborne remained in England until 1892 and associated with the painters of the New English Art Club.
While abroad, Osborne kept in contact with Dublin's artistic community. He painted Dublin scenes, became a full member of the RHA in 1886 and, in the same year, was one of the founders of the Dublin Art Club. He taught in the Academy Schools from the early 1890s until his death and one of his most important pupils was William Leech. Osborne's return to Dublin was prompted by the death of his sister, Violet, whose newly-born baby was given into the care of Osborne's aged parents.
From this period he cultivated a portrait practice and in time was very successful. He obtained international recognition when his double portrait of 'Mrs Noel Guinness and her Daughter Margaret' received a bronze medal at the Exposition Universelle in 1900.
While Osborne continued to paint garden scenes and interiors with children, his general manner of painting had begun to change. Influenced by the Impressionists, and by Manet and Degas, his later palette is more adventurous, his brushwork looser, and his approach more painterly. From Ireland he once again began to exhibit with the New English Art Club. In 1900 he was offered a knighthood in recognition of his services to art and his distinction as a painter, but he refused. He died of pneumonia in 1903 at the age of forty-three.
