George John Pinwell, A.R.W.S. (1842-1875)

Pinwell trained at St Martin's Lane Academy,and Heatherley's Academy before taking up a role with the printer-publisher Josiah Wood Whymper. Whilst at Whymper's he met Frederick Walker (1840-1875) and John William North (1842-1924), alongside whom he would become a central figure in the 'Idyllists'. As well as his illustrative work he painted jewel-like brightly-coloured watercolours which he exhibited at the Royal Watercolour Society, where he became an Associate Member in 1869. Although predominantly associated with the Idyllists and their idealised depictions of everyday life, by the mid 1870s Pinwell was also interested in Aestheticism, as demonstrated by one of the last watercolours he exhibited at the R.W.S., Sweet Melancholy (Harris Museum and Art Gallery, Preston). The present drawing is probably a design for an illustration to Fun, a magazine run by the Dalziel brothers from 1870 to 1893, and shows the influence of Du Maurier's aesthetic cartoons.