A Young Girl by a Pool Painting by Herbert James Draper

Herbert James Draper was an English Classicist painter who lived from November 26, 1863, to September 22, 1920. He began his career in the Victorian era and worked through the first two decades of the 20th century.
He was born in London to a fruit merchant named John James Draper and his wife Emma. He went to school in Tottenham at Bruce Castle School and then studied art at the Royal Academy. Between 1888 and 1892, he took a number of trips to Rome and Paris to learn. In 1889, he won the Royal Academy Gold Medal and Travelling Studentship. He worked as an illustrator in the 1890s and eventually moved to London. He married Ida Williams in 1891, and they had a daughter named Yvonne. At the age of 56, he died of arteriosclerosis in his home on Abbey Road.
1894 was the start of Draper's most productive time. He mostly wrote about myths and legends from ancient Greece. The Chantrey Trustees later bought The Lament for Icarus (1898), which won the gold medal at the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1900, for the Tate Gallery. The ceiling of the Drapers' Hall in the City of London was also decorated by him. Draper wasn't a member or an associate of the Royal Academy, but he did take part in the annual expositions starting in 1890. As people's tastes changed and mythological scenes became less popular, he focused more on portraits in later years.
During his life, Draper was a well-known portrait painter with a lot of fans. In his later years, he became less well-known, but recently there has been a surge of interest in his work on the art market. The Royal Cornwall Museum sold his painting "The Sea Maiden" in 2010 to help keep its finances stable. This led to a debate about the policy of selling art for this reason.

• Nationality: UNITED KINGDOM
• Date of birth : 1863
• Artistic domains: Represented by a Gallery,
• Groups: Contemporary British Artists Artists presented by a gallery