John Atkinson Grimshaw was born in 1836 in the town of Leeds in the north of England. Until the age of 24, he worked as a clerk in the Northern Railway office, and then, unexpectedly for everyone, decided to become an artist. He began to exhibit, did not make a big splash, but found his audience, who liked his gloomy landscapes, and buyers.

Being self-taught, Atkinson Grimshaw turned to photography as an aid in creating canvases: it is known that he projected photographs onto canvas in order to depict the landscape he liked as accurately as possible. English critics argued about how legitimate it is to consider such art to be painting. But here it is appropriate to

remember that, according to many art historians, the camera obscura and similar inventions were used by many artists of the past, including Caravaggio and Vermeer – but one cannot doubt their skill.

Another source of inspiration for Atkinson Grimshaw is the art of the Pre-Raphaelites: from them he took a love for precise details, realism up to naturalism and a touch of mystical mood. Most of the works of this artist are landscapes.

Atkinson Grimshaw had very few exhibitions: in his entire life, only five paintings were presented at the Royal Academy of Arts. The artist mainly worked on private commissions, which did not prevent him from achieving financial well-being. For his family, he rented a 17th-century mansion in Scarsborough and called it “Castle by the Sea”, referring to Longfellow’s poem.

In addition to urban landscapes, Atkinson Grimshaw has very poetic views of nature: buildings lost in the forest, remote corners, stones overgrown with moss. The artist sometimes somewhat abuses the brightness of colors and picturesque effects, and yet these paintings have great charm. They seem very literary, as if you could write a novel, or at least a short story, by looking into each one).
But, of course, Atkinson Grimshaw’s main works are considered to be his gloomy city views. It is curious that Grimshaw’s works began to be copied and forged during the artist’s lifetime, and this despite the fact that he did not gain any worldwide popularity.

The artist himself left no diaries or letters. Atkinson Grimshaw died in 1893, and his art was quickly forgotten. Art critics remembered the British landscape artist only in the second half of the 20th century, having become interested in him and his connections with the Pre-Raphaelites.