WRIGHT, Alan

1864 - 1959

Herbert Alan Wright was born at Newmarket, Suffolk on 30 September 1864, son of William Arthur Wright and his wife Emily née Broad (23 July 1835-1917), who married at Bury St Edmund's, Suffolk in 1857 and moved to Newmarket in 1861, opening a bookseller's shop in the High Street. Herbert trained as an artist under Buscall Fox and exhibited at the Bury St Edmund's Fine Art Society in 1880 and in 1881 two equine portraits, when described as 'one of his most promising pupils'. His father died in 1883 when the bookselling business was run by Alan's brother, Arthur George Wright, until they moved to 35 Tunley Road, Streatham, Wandsworth where, in 1901, Alan was a 36 year old artist living with his 65-year-old widowed mother Emily, together with brother Arthur George 43 and sister Edith Mary 30. Known as Alan Wright he married at Burghfield Common Parish Church in Berkshire in June 1912, Scottish illustrator Anne Anderson (19 May 1874-26 May 1952) and they lived in the Berkshire cottage she had purchased two years earlier. Though they collaborated on many projects, Anne was the driving force although Alan had had a successful career as an illustrator until working on a book for the vilified homosexual Baron Corvo in 1898. An illustrator for the 'Strand Magazine', he exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1890 '. Also exhibiting several times at the New English Art Club and at the Royal Society of British Artists in 1890, from c/o Harry] Alexander John Campbell, Esq., 104 Wharton Road, Kensington Park, a pastel 'Daphnis', Campbell was a music composer. As Herbert Alan Wright, he died at Burghfield Common, Little Audrey, Reading, Berkshire on 13 July 1959, aged 94 and cremated at Henley Road Crematorium, Caversham on 17 July.

Note: the GRO gives his birth as 4th quarter of 1864 but he gave the date to the enumerator for the 1939 identity card, 1865, maybe because his wife was about ten years younger.

Royal Academy Exhibits
from 88 Sternfield Road, W. Kensington
1890 1660 'Crow not, Croak not' - drawing
from The Studio, 109 Shepherd's Bush Road
1891 1628 Design to 'Ballade des Pendes - drawing
         1673 Design for a frontispiece for a volume of Poems - drawing
from Little Audrey, Burghfield Common, Berkshire
1913 186 The Centaur

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Works by This Artist