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Demolishing the Crown Inn, Royston
Horses pulling load (sketch)
Milking Time
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Ernest Herbert Whydale—1886-1952
Born in Yorkshire in 1886, Ernest Herbert Whydale did not
come to Royston until 1918, when the family moved there after his father’s
retirement. By that time, however, he had studied at the Westminster
College of Art and at Camberwell and had already been practising as a
commercial artist for some years, producing work of a very high quality.
In 1910 he had his first picture hung at the Royal Academy and continued to
exhibit there almost every year until 1950, two years before his death.
Early in his career, Whydale showed great talent as an
etcher; in 1914 the National Gallery of Canada acquired five of his
etchings and he also contributed one to Queen Mary's Doll's House, which was
shown at the British Empire Exhibition in 1924. In 1920 he was elected
an associate member of the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers and Engravers.
Whydale also had a strong interest in theatrical costume, and the Museum’s
holdings have been enriched by a substantial number of coloured etchings
that he had himself collected.
For more than thirty years Whydale lived quietly in Royston
rather than in London, where he could have achieved greater acclaim.
He painted a variety of subjects from Still Life to Portraits and
Landscapes, but he seems to have taken his greatest pleasure in painting
horses. In 1929, he described his favourite recreation as
‘caravanning’ and for many years he travelled out of Royston each summer
with his brother Arthur or a friend, by horse-drawn caravan.
A generous man, who loved Royston and the surrounding
countryside, Whydale often gave away his work to friends. Today, this
is the main reason why so much of it has survived in and around the town of
Royston.
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The Museum's collection
has recently been enriched by a very generous donation of Whydale
prints, and this will be known as the Elizabeth Marsh Collection.
Five of the prints are shown below, and a larger version of each can be
seen by clicking on
the individual pictures. |
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Moonrise |
The Gypsy |
The Blacksmith at
Manor Farm |
The Little Rick
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Blackberry Time |
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It will be a source of
great pleasure to all those interested in the Museum's art collection
that it has proved possible to purchase the oil painting of The
Thunderstorm. This painting is particularly important to the
Royston Museum in that it is closely related to two etchings which
already form part of its collection. That on the left below was shown at
an exhibition at the galleries of James Connell and Sons in 1918, the
same year as the painting was hung at the Royal Academy's Annual
Exhibition. The Young Horse, which is shown on the right
below, was hung at the Royal Academy's Exhibition ten years later in
1928, but its relationship with the other two works is very apparent. |
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Thunderstorm |
The Thunderstorm |
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The Young Horse |
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