William Henry Hunt (1790 - 1864), British Watercolor Artist
I have been studying and collecting the work of William Henry Hunt since the day after I bought a small oil painting signed "William Hunt" in November 1977. At first I was primarily interested in determining the full identity of the artist, and, after deciding that the most likely answer would be that it was an early work by the watercolor artist (who was admitted as a member of the Society of Painters in Water-colors in 1824, when membership was briefly also open to oil painters). By 1986 I learned that the style of the clothing of the children in my painting precluded it being from an early phase of that Hunt's work, yet I had by then started collecting Hunt's watercolors and had performed so much research on William Henry Hunt that I continued my intensive study of the then rather obscure watercolor painter. When I began that research there was very little in the way of literature on Hunt. By 1982 I could have published on Hunt, but Sir John Witt beat me to it. So, I decided that I had to look far more deeply for more information on the artist. I did so by going through every catalogue of sales for paintings, drawings, and watercolors at Christie's in London (where most art was sold before the 1960s), looking at every page of the unindexed and unillustrated catalogues, all the way back to 1830. I also looked at every other auction catalogue, including those for Fosters, Sotheby's, Phillips, Bonhams, or any other sale which could include a work by Hunt. Perhaps the other most valuable sources of information were reviews of the annual exhibitions of the watercolor society from the 19th century which usually described at least some of the works shown by Hunt and the other member artists in some detail, as opposed to the catalogues of the exhibitions themselves, which only listed titles (which can be very misleading.
I could have written a book and a true catalogue raisonne on Hunt decades ago. I have helped in the cataloguing of his work for all the major auction houses for decades. Yet I have always been hesitant to do so because I wanted to continue to add the numerous, lost or unseen works that have continued to appear with some regularity on the art market. I also have no way to obtain reproducable photographs of most of the works I have seen or which I have been able to obtain some images of, since the current whereabouts of almost all watercolors by the artist which are not in public collections are unknown to me. Yet there is so much information about Hunt and his oeuvre on the internet, that I feel that I must publish in some form what I have learned through 50 years of work. While I may someday publish a book, to limit the possibility that all could be lost if something happens to me, I have decided to use these photos of varying quality of Flickr to serve as a catalogue raisonne with extensive notes to better inform anyone who is interested in the work of this once famous artist. Craig W. Englund, Southern California, July 14, 2022.
Plums, Damsons, and Grapes on the Ground, 12 X 17 in., signed (S) Chr. 14 Dec 1876, Lot 138 (P) £75 (must have been faded);
The Grand-daughter's Letter, signed, 12 X 11 in, (S) Chr 10 Feb 1970, Lot 19 (P) 20 gns. $50 Gabriel;
A Still Life of Fruit on a Bank, 8 X 11 in, 20 X 28 cm., signed (S) Phillips London, 18 April 1988, Lot 51;
A Study of Grapes and a Peach, signed, 7 1/4 X 10 7/8, (S) Christie's London, 28 Oct 1986, Lot 119 (P) Bought in;
May Blosson, signed, l.l, W. HUNT, 15 X 6", 3 X 15.5, c.m.(S) Sotheby's London, 10 Nov 1994, Lot 140;
A Girl in a Black Dress, Leaning on a Table, Watercolor, 5 3/4 X 3 3/4, 14.6 X 9.5 cm., With Agnew's (London dealer), Feb. 1994; Exhibited:
8 Feb - 25 March 1994, 121st Annual Exhibition, English Drawings and Watercolours, No. 60
The Mischievous Farmer's Boy, Watercolor and bodycolor, 12 3/4 X 6 in., (S) Christie's London, 12 Oct. 1971, Lot 140 (P)Withdrawn
