John Atkinson Grimshaw (1836-1893)

During the first half of the 1880s Grimshaw travelled annually to London from his home in Leeds in order to capitalise on the market for local topographical views. His townscapes were largely focused around the River Thames, the heart of the bustling city, which he captured bathed in his distinctive and highly atmospheric moonlight. So accomplished were these nocturnal scenes that they led Grimshaw’s friend and neighbour Whistler to remark upon seeing them ‘I considered myself the inventor of nocturnes until I saw Grimmy’s moonlight pictures’.