Edward Atkinson Hornel

Scottish 1864-1933

Edward Atkinson Hornel (1864-1933) was a Scottish painter of landscapes, flowers, and foliage, with children.

He was born in Australia, of Scottish parents, and he was brought up and lived practically all his life in Scotland, at Kirkcudbright. He studied for three years at the art school at Edinburgh, and for two years at Antwerp under Professor Verlat. Returning from Antwerp in 1885, he met George Henry and associated himself with the Glasgow School.

Hornel and Henry collaborated upon "The Druids Bringing In The Mistletoe" (1890), a procession of priests bringing in the sacred mistletoe. The two worked side by side to achieve decorative splendor of color, Hornel boldly and freely employing texture effects produced by loading and scraping, roughening, smoothing, and staining. In 1893-94 the two artists spent a year and a half in Japan, where Hornel learned much about decorative design and spacing. Towards the close of the nineties his colors, while preserving their glow and richness, became more refined and more atmospheric, and his drawing more naturalistic, combining sensuous appeal with emotional and poetic significance. In 1901 he declined election to the Royal Scottish Academy.

There are examples of his works in the museums of Buffalo, St. Louis, Toronto, Montreal, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Leeds, Manchester, Hull, Bath, and Liverpool.