George R. Chapman
Date of birth: 1834
Place of birth: Preston, Lancashire
Category: artist
Identity:
George R. Chapman was an artist and friend of Whistler. His brother Alfred was a Liverpool engineer, industrialist and patron of Whistler. Whistler also knew his sister Ellen and brother Dr John Chapman.
Life:
As an artist George Chapman was active in the period 1863-1874. In 1869 George Augustus Sala mentioned in a letter to Whistler a picture by Chapman, The Golden Witch (untraced), which he felt was derivative of Frederick Sandys' Medea (1866-68; Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery), exhibited at the R.A. in this year [#11000]. Whistler, however, appears to have held Chapman in some regard and he received occasional mention in Whistler's letters from 1859 (#01912) to 1878 (#00549). In 1873 he seems to have been among the circle of friends in which Whistler socialised (#00343).
Bibliography:
Pennell, Elizabeth Robins, and Joseph Pennell, The Life of James McNeill Whistler, 2 vols, London and Philadelphia, 1908 ; 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 .
