![]() ![]() ![]() During his period he often returned to Dublin to make preparatory sketches for what became his most renowned series, of the everyday lives of the city's poor. Soon after, he moved to England where he worked alongside Nathaniel Hill and Augustus Burke at Walberswick. In 1883, Osborne moved from Antwerp to Brittany where he painted his famous Apple Gathering, Quimperlé, now in the National Gallery of Ireland. He was influenced by the Flemish painter Rubens, and the French realist, plein-air painter, Jules Bastien-Lepage, as well as Berthe Morisot. ![]() He won the Taylor Prize in 18, the highest student honour in Ireland of the time, while studying at the Koninklijke Academie voor Schone Kunsten in Antwerp. He was educated at Rathmines School and at the Royal Hibernian Academy school. ![]() Yet, according to art historian Campbell, in these paintings, "Osborne eschews the overly sentimental or literary quality of much Victorian genre painting, and displays a more down-to-earth, realistic approach, and a mood of gentleness." Walter learned from his father that there was money to be earned from painting animals, and he produced quite a few including of children with their pets, notably his 1885 A New Arrival, and a series of impressionistic works on cows. By the 1880s, many landlords had hit economic difficulties, and William had to focus on painting mostly dogs. Walter Osborne was born in Rathmines, Dublin, the second of three sons of William Osborne, a successful animal painter who specialised in portraying horses and dogs for the then prosperous Irish landlords. Today he is regarded as a major Irish artist. He died from pneumonia at 43 years, before achieving his full potential. Osborne had an engaging, charismatic personality and was well thought of in a variety of social circles. His main source of income was portraiture, landscapes and depictions of animals, but he is today better known for his documentary depictions of Ireland's working class poor. Osborne produced works in oil, water-colour, pastel and pencil. Later, he spent time in rural England and Brittany, where he became acquainted with the style of the impressionists. He became a member of the Royal Hibernian Academy after an early showing. Osborne's talent was evident as a young man and he traveled widely in his youth studying at the Academie Royale des Beaux Arts in Antwerp. A prolific artist, he produced oils, watercolours, and numerous pencil sketches. He also produced city-scapes, which he painted from both sketches and photographs. Most of his paintings are figurative and focus on women, children, the elderly, the poor, and the day-to-day life of ordinary people on Dublin streets, as well as series of rural scenes. It relates the circumstances under which the great exodus to the New World began, the trials and tribulations faced by these tough American pioneers and the enduring influence they came to exert on the politics, education and religion of the country.Walter Frederick Osborne (17 June 1859 – 24 April 1903) was an Irish impressionist and Post-Impressionism landscape and portrait painter, best known for his documentary depictions of late 19th century working class life. The Scotch-Irish in America tells the story of how the hardy breed of men and women, who in America came to be known as the ‘Scotch-Irish’, was forged in the north of Ireland during the seventeenth century. Maguire provides a substantial and invaluable account of the extreme difficulties faced by pioneer Irish immigrants in North America during the 19th Century. His account of the journey provides invaluable eyewitness testimony to the trauma and tragedy that many emigrants had to face en route to their new lives in Canada and America. The Ocean Plague: or, A Voyage to Quebec in an Irish Emigrant Vessel is based upon the diary of Robert Whyte who, in 1847, crossed the Atlantic from Dublin to Quebec in an Irish emigrant ship. ![]()
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