About George Elgar Hicks
Crowded Victorian city scenes, busy as a market day
George Elgar Hicks was an English Victorian painter born in Lymington, Hampshire, in 1824.
George Elgar Hicks at a glance
- Born: 13 March 1824 in Lymington, Hampshire, England
- Died: 1914
- Nationality: English
- Known for: Large scenes of everyday Victorian city life
- Style or Movement: Victorian genre painting, in the manner of William Powell Frith
- Education: Studied medicine at University College, then the Royal Academy Schools from 1844
- Notable works: “Dividend Day at the Bank of England” (1859), “The General Post Office”, “Billingsgate Fish Market”
“He did not achieve much success as an artist during this period and later referred to his art at this time as ‘small and unimportant.’”
George Elgar Hicks studied medicine at University College from 1840 to 1842, but after three years of arduous and disagreeable study Hicks decided he wanted be an artist, and he entered the Royal Academy Schools in 1844.
George Elgar Hicks married Maria Hariss in 1847, and six of their eight children were born in the seven years following, but Hicks did not achieved much success as an artist during this period, blaming his lack of time to study art or interact with other artists due to a busy family life.
George Elgar Hicks painted his first large genre painting, Dividend Day at the Bank of England, in 1859, following the success of Frith’s paintings Ramsgate Sands and The Derby Day at the Royal Academy; and Hicks is generally considered Frith’s principal imitator.
George Elgar Hicks painted several more large modern-life paintings in the following years which were generally poorly reviewed by critics, including The General Post Office, Billingsgate Fish Market and Changing Homes, and Hicks was one of the few artists that showed lasting interest in the emualtion of Frith’s style.
By the late 1860s, the popularity of genre painting had declined and George Elgar Hicks began to focus on historical subjects, leading to society portraiture in the 1870s, and he remarried in 1884 after Maria’s death in 1881.
- Born on 13 March 1824 in Lymington, Hampshire.
- Studied medicine before becoming an artist.
- He emulated William Powell Frith’s genre painting style.
- Married Maria Hariss in 1847 and had eight children.
- Died in 1914, a month before World War I began.
George Elgar Hicks retired in the 1890s and died a month before the declaration of World War I in 1914, and his work remains a testament to Victorian genre painting and the influence of Frith’s style on his contemporaries.
George Elgar Hicks’s legacy is that of a dedicated artist who balanced family life with his artistic ambitions, and his paintings of everyday Victorian life, particularly his depictions of the Bank of England and the General Post Office, offer a valuable window into the social dynamics of nineteenth-century England.