Calderon, P. H. (Philip Hermogenes), 1833-1898

English painter.

Philip Hermogenes Calderon (1833-1898) was a painter of domestic and historical scenes and leader of the St. John's Wood Clique. He was Keeper of the Royal Academy in London. Frederic Leighton (1830-1896) was a leading Victorian neo-classical painter and president of the Royal Academy from 1878 to 1896. Sir John Everett Millais (1829-1896) was a painter, watercolorist, and illustrator, and co-founder of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. He succeeded Frederic Leighton as president of the Royal Academy in 1896.

Philip H. Calderon was an English painter of French and Spanish ancestry. He studied art in London and Paris, and began exhibiting paintings at the Royal Academy in 1853. His colorful, detailed style was reminiscent of the Pre-Raphaelites, and he was elected to the Royal Academy in 1867. He was a founding member of the St. John's Wood Clique, known for their historical or Biblical scenes.

Philip Hermogenes Calderon (1833-1898) was born in Poitiers, France, the son of a French mother and a Spanish father. Philip and his parents moved to London in the 1840s, and he began his artistic training in 1850. He first exhibited a work at the Royal Academy in 1853. Calderon's father died in 1854, leaving little money to his family. Calderon would support his mother for the rest of his life. Calderon began painting portraits at this point in his career, and became a member of the St. John's Wood Clique, a group of young artists whose primary interest was in historical genre painting. The Clique was unlike the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, however, in that it had no particular 'program' or project for English art. Rather, the artists of the Clique pooled their critical abilities for the end of improving their own talents. In the 1860s, Calderon was at the peak of his career, earning a comfortable living and receiving considerable critical accolades for his work. He moved in wide social circles at this time, befriending other artists and writers including Dickens and Trollope. By the late 1880s, however, the St. John's Wood Clique had begun to break up and Calderon had fallen on somewhat harder times. He was given the post of Keeper at the Royal Academy in 1887, a position that he took very seriously, perhaps to the detriment of his own painting. Poor health began plaguing Calderon in the 1890s, and he died on April 30, 1898 at his home in Piccadilly.

Frederic, Lord Leighton (1830-1896) was a well-established British painter by the late Victorian era. Educated largely in Europe, he began exhibiting his art, both within and outside of the Royal Academy, in the 1850s. Leighton tended to focus on classical subjects in his art. His travels in the Middle East during the mid to late nineteenth century gave him inspiration for his paintings as well. While Leighton was never as financially successful nor as professionally well-received as some of his peers, he was nevertheless elected President of the Royal Academy in 1878. From the 1860s onward, he lived in a sumptuous house on Holland Park Road, the interiors of which were lavishly decorated in Victorian Orientalist style. The highlight of the home's interior is the Arab Hall, an addition made to the building in the 1870s, with walls covered in precious blue Islamic tile. Although Leighton took his duties as Academy president seriously, he continued painting all the while. His strenuous pace of life caught up to him, perhaps, in 1894, when he began suffering from poor health. Although he resigned his leadership position in order to travel and rest in 1895, he died on January 25, 1896 at his home in London.

Sir John Everett Millais (1829-1896) was born in Southampton, and spent a large portion of his childhood in Jersey, in the Channel Islands. When he exhibited a particular talent in painting at an early age, his parents moved to London in order to allow him to train as an artist. He was enrolled at the Royal Academy Schools in 1840, becoming the youngest student in the institution's history. Millais received many accolades for his work while in training. Although his education had been at the Royal Academy, as a young professional he felt that it was important for artists to look to their late Medieval and early Renaissance predecessors as the paragons of artistic achievement. In 1848, at his home, he founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood with his friends Dante Gabriel Rossetti and William Holman Hunt. Eventually, the Brotherhood would come to include other members, all of whom espoused the same artistic and intellectual philosophy of returning to the bright colors, detail, and compositional techniques of early European artists. While Millais adhered closely to this philosophy at the early end of his career, and produced some of his best-known pieces during this time, he would eventually return to more traditional and popular approaches. He enjoyed considerable financial and social success as a painter, building an opulent home at Palace Gate, in Kensington, London, in the 1870s. At this stage in his career, Millais painted a number of portraits and some sentimental pieces, including his two most famous works, "Bubbles," and "Cherry Ripe." He was made a Baronet in 1885 (and was the first artist to be granted this honor) owing to his popularity and renown in England. Millais continued painting throughout his life and, although suffering from throat cancer by the 1890s, served as President of the Royal Academy from 1895-1896, taking the position over from Frederic Leighton. Millais died on August 13, 1896 at his home in London.