Thomas Edwin Mostyn: Jewels

Thomas Edwin Mostyn (1864-1930) was born in Liverpool, the son of the artist Edwin Mostyn. He studied at the Manchester Academy of Fine Arts, had his first local exhibition in 1880, and was showing at the Royal Academy by the age of 29.  He is mainly recognized for his romantic garden scenes, although his style was so eclectic throughout his career that it is hard to believe that the same artist created all of his paintings.

Many of his earliest works were strongly influenced by the strong anti-Victorian Materialist sentiment of his teacher Hubert Von Herkomer. In these works Mostyn depicted the poverty of the working classes in the style of the realists, an effective way of raising social consciousness. In 1918, Mostyn moved to Devon where he concentrated on a series of enchanted garden scenes for which he would become best known.  

Leaving realism behind, Mostyn began to paint dream-like landscapes, idealizing nature by working with, and building upon, his knowledge of nature's strength and beauty.  By piling thick layers of intensely bright coloured pigment onto the canvas with a palette knife, he overwhelmed the viewer with a barrage of visual stimuli in an effort to evoke their imagination.  Mostyn exhibited at the Royal Academy, and was a member of the Royal Institute of Painters in Oil-Colours, the Royal Cambrian Academy, and the Royal West of England Academy.  He also exhibited in the Paris Salon, and at the Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh.

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HC-831: card size 7" x 5" (178mm x 127mm)