John Atkinson Grimshaw (1836-1893)

Grimshaw took a studio in Manresa Road, Chelsea, in the early 1880s. His neighbouring artists included James McNeill Whistler and the two became firm friends. Whistler famously admitted 'I considered myself the inventor of nocturnes until I saw Grimmy's moonlight pictures'.

The growing metropolis gave him a plethora of exciting new subjects to choose from and a larger pool of potential new buyers. Hampstead, and in particular Heath Street, became a favourite subject, with the lights from the shop windows and gas lamps reflected onto the wet cobbles below, and the intricate webbing of the trees above creating ghostly silhouettes against the moonlit sky. View of Heath Street by Night, is now in the collection of Tate Britain. The upper part of the street was one of the original lanes leading into the village of Hampstead. It was lengthened between 1887 and 1889 to link it with the new Fitzjohn's Avenue.