John Melhuish Strudwick

Who was John Melhuish Strudwick?

John Melhuish Strudwick, was a Victorian Pre-Raphaelite painter, the son of William Strudwick and Sarah Melhuish.

John Strudwick attended St Saviour's Grammar School in Southwark. Disliking the idea of a business career, he took classes at the Royal Academy Schools in South Kensington, but was not regarded as a promising student. In the 1860s he was encouraged by a visitor, the Scottish genre painter, John Pettie, whose style he subsequently emulated. His depiction of the ballad of 'Auld Robin Gray', which was exhibited at the Royal Society of British Artists in 1873, is an example of this period. His art style, however, developed in a new direction in the 1870s when he worked first as studio assistant to his uncle Spencer Stanhope and then to Edward Burne-Jones. In keeping with artists in his circle, he exhibited at the Grosvenor and New Galleries. Strudwick's studio was in Hammersmith, close to that of Burne-Jones and Thomas Matthews Rooke, who had also been an assistant to Burne-Jones. He married Harriet Reed and had a single daughter, Ethel, who later became High Mistress of St Paul's Girls' School from 1927 to 1948, and was awarded a CBE.