Richard Caton Woodville

Military artist Richard Caton Woodville was born in London in 1856 and became Britain's most prolific and successful artist in this genre of the nineteenth and early twentieth century, producing countless oil paintings and drawings, many for the magazine, Illustrated London News. He learned his craft in Dusseldorf with Wilhelm Camphausen, the great German military painter, and later in Paris. He then experienced war first-hand in Albania and Montenegro towards the end of the Russo-Turkish War of 1877, and later in Egypt during the war of 1882. During his research he made numerous sketches and obtained photographs of the trenches at Tel-e-Kebir for his friend, the French military artist, Alphonse Marie de Neuville who had been commissioned to paint a scene of the battle. His enthusiasm for the military extended to his own activities; he joined the Royal Berkshire Yeomanry Cavalry in 1879 and remained with them until 1914, when he joined the National Reserve as a Captain. During a highly successful career, his work was frequently exhibited at Burlington House, showing no less than 21 battle pictures there, many dealing with contemporary events of the time including the Second Afghan War, the Zulu War, the Boer War and ultimately the First World War. He painted many historical recreations both in oil and watercolour including a series on famous British battles for the Illustrated London News. His memoirs, entitled ‘Random Recollections', were published in 1914. He died in 1927.