Edward Arthur Walton

Identity:

Edward Arthur Walton was a painter.

Life:

Walton, one of the Glasgow boys, trained at the Staatliche Kunstakademie in Dusseldorf and at the Glasgow School of Art. He was elected a member of Glasgow Art Club on 19 November 1878.

He joined the New English Art Club in 1887, where his works were represented along with Whistler's in the following year's exhibition. Walton's atmospheric landscapes were influenced by French plein-air painting and also by the nebulous Nocturnes of Whistler. His portraits were also markedly Whistlerian in style, e.g. Artist's Mother (1885; National Gallery of Scotland). Walton was instrumental in the purchase of Arrangement in Grey and Black, No. 2: Portrait of Thomas Carlyle y137, by the Glasgow Corporation in 1891. The two men were in frequent correspondence during this time. From 1894 until 1904 Walton was in London where he became quite close to Whistler.

From 1880 Walton exhibited regularly at the Institute of Fine Arts in Glasgow and at the Royal Scottish Academy in Edinburgh. He was elected an Associate of the latter in 1889 and a full member in 1905. In 1915 he became President of the Royal Scottish Water Colour Society.

Bibliography:

Caw, J. L., Scottish Painting Past and Present, 1620-1908, Edinburgh, 1908, pp. 370-73; Bénézit, E., Dictionnaire des Peintres, Sculpteurs, Dessinateurs et Graveurs, 8 vols, Paris, 1956-61; Weller, H., E. A. Walton, 1860-1922, Edinburgh, 1981; Halsby, J., Scottish Watercolours, 1740-1940, Braintree, 1986, pp. 138-41; Hardie, W., Scottish Painting, 1837 to the Present, London, 1976; Young, Andrew McLaren, Margaret F. MacDonald, Robin Spencer, and Hamish Miles, The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler, New Haven and London, 1980 ; MacDonald, Margaret F., James McNeill Whistler. Drawings, Pastels and Watercolours. A Catalogue Raisonné, New Haven and London, 1995 ; Willsdon, Clare A. P., 'E. A. Walton', Grove Dictionary of Art Online.