Frederick Wedmore

Who was Frederick Wedmore?

Frederick Wedmore was an English art critic and man of letters.

Wedmore was born at Richmond Hill, Clifton, the eldest son of Thomas Wedmore of Druids Stoke, Stoke Bishop. His family were Quakers, and he was educated at a Quaker private school and then in Lausanne and Paris. After a short experience of journalism in Bristol he came to London in 1868, and began to write for The Spectator. His early works included two novels, but the best examples of his prose are perhaps to be found in his volumes of short stories, Pastorals of France, Renunciations, Orgeas and Miradou, reprinted in 1905 as A Dream of Provence.

In 1900 he published another novel, The Collapse of the Penitent. As early as 1878 he had begun a long connection with the London Standard as art critic. He began his studies on etching with a noteworthy paper in The Nineteenth Century on the etchings of Charles Méryon. This was followed by The Four Masters of Etching, with original etchings by Sir FS Haden, Jules Jacquemart, JM Whistler, and Alphonse Legros; Etching in England; an English edition of E Michel's Rembrandt; and a study and a catalogue of Whistler's Etchings. His other works include Studies in English Art, The Masters of Genre Painting, English Water Colour, Turner and Ruskin.