Algernon Talmage

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Algernon Mayow Talmage (1871–1939) was a British Impressionist painter. He was born in Fifield, Oxfordshire, the son of Rev. John Mayow Talmage. A childhood gun accident permanently injured his right hand, so he painted with his left hand and was exempt from active service in World War I.

In 1892 he studied with Hubert von Herkomer at the Herkomer School of Art in Bushey, where he painted with Lucy Kemp-Welch. He later moved to St Ives, Cornwall, joining the St Ives School. There he helped found an artists’ club shaped by the coastal landscape, and those years helped develop his mellow palette and skill with light.

Talmage is well known for tutoring Emily Carr at St Ives in his studio, "The Cabin" on Westcotts Quay; his guidance encouraged her early forest paintings. Australian painter Will Ashton was another student. In 1896 he married Cornish artist Gertrude Rowe; they had two daughters, Archie and Dorothy. In 1900 he helped start the Cornish School of Landscape, Figure and Sea Painting with Albert Julius Olsson. Later he and Gertrude ran their own art school, with Olsson as a visiting artist. He separated from Gertrude in 1907 and moved to Chelsea with his former pupil Hilda Fearon.

Talmage worked across landscapes, portraits, animals, and prints and etching. His first solo show was at the Goupil Gallery in London in 1909. He painted "The Founding of Australia," commissioned by the Australasian Pioneers Club and shown at the Royal Academy in 1937; the scene shows Governor Phillip toasting King George III on 26 January 1788, the day the fleet moved from Botany Bay to Sydney Cove. Some see it as a celebration of colonization and British power.

He was elected to the Royal Society of British Artists in 1902. He also served as a war artist on the Western Front in France, even though his hand injury kept him from serving in the usual military role.