Grove of Trees on the Hillside - Landscape by William Horsbrugh-Porter Rha Irish by William Eric Horsbrugh-Porter

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Description

Lovely and bright hillside landscape by William Horsbrugh-Porter RHA (Irish, 1905-1985). Several aspens and other trees are showing lovely fall … Read more Lovely and bright hillside landscape by William Horsbrugh-Porter RHA (Irish, 1905-1985). Several aspens and other trees are showing lovely fall foliage, nestled on the side of a rocky hill. A path runs along the bottom of the composition. There is some impasto to the brushwork, adding texture and depth to the piece.

Signed and dated "Horsbrugh 26" in the lower right corner.
Canvas size: 20"H x 24"W
Presented in a textured wood frame; 27.75"H x 31.75"W x 3.75"D.

William Eric Horsbrugh-Porter (Irish, 1905-1985), a native of Dalkey Co. Dublin, attended the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art before continuing his education at the renowned Slade School, London, where he held both the Slade Scholarship and the Robert Ross Scholarship. In 1928 he collaborated with his friend, the London born artist Stephen Bone, painting murals for Piccadilly Underground.

From 1926 to 1974 he showed more than forty works at the Royal Hibernian Academy, including Wild Roses in 1972, his second penultimate exhibition in the RHA prior to his death in 1985.
Painter and writer, born in Dalkey, near Dublin, Ireland, commonly known as Eric. He went to Bedales School, then attended Slade School of Fine Art, 1924–8, under Henry Tonks; he gained Slade and Robert Ross Scholarships and was a prizeman. Horsbrugh-Porter’s friends included such fellow-students as William Coldstream and William Townsend, in whose journals he appears. He was a keen tennis player of high standard. Helped Stephen Bone on his Piccadilly Underground station murals. During World War II Horsbrugh-Porter served in the Royal Navy as a first lieutenant on aircraft carriers, including Indomitable. In 1929 Horsbrugh-Porter had married Monica Maude, daughter of Captain Anthony Maude and Eva Beresford, of Belgard Castle, Dublin. After the war he joined his father’s stockbroking firm there, Porter, Millard and Irvine.

In 1947 Horsbrugh-Porter, as Eric Porter, published Saturn’s Child, a fairly racy novel based on the life of the Spanish painter Goya, which was translated into several languages. He showed at RHA, 1926–52, also at Cooling Galleries, RA, NEAC, ROI and elsewhere. His most successful works, sometimes commissioned and known in the family as his “grassy pictures”, gave a worm’s eye view of meadows of vetch, ladybirds, and so on. Latterly he used coloured glass in large landscapes and seascapes, one being bought by Shelbourne Hotel, Dublin. Sometimes signed his pictures with the initials H P. See less