Frederic Villiers

Content sourced from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Frederic Villiers (1851–1922) was a British war artist and war correspondent, one of the best-known “special” artists of the late 19th century. Born in London, he studied in France and in London, and in 1876 offered his services to The Graphic after seeing a poster about Serbia at war with Turkey. This launched a long career of reporting wars around the world. He may have been the model for Rudyard Kipling’s war-artist Dick Heldar.

Villiers covered many conflicts, beginning with the Russo-Turkish War of 1877 and the Battle of Plevna. He then went to Afghanistan for the Second Afghan War (1878), where he befriended Cavagnari. His travels included a world cruise to India, Simla, Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii and San Francisco, and in 1882 he was in Egypt for the Anglo-Egyptian War, witnessing the Battle of Tel-el-Kebir. In July 1882 he was aboard HMS Condor during the Bombardment of Alexandria. He later drew the coronation in Russia (1886) and scenes from the Sudan, including the Gordon Relief Expedition. Other campaigns he covered included the Serbo-Bulgarian War (1886), the Third Anglo-Burmese War (1887), the First Sino-Japanese War (1894–95), and the Greco-Turkish War (1897). In 1898, he reported on the Sudan campaign leading to the Battle of Omdurman. During the Russo-Japanese War he worked with Japanese forces for The Illustrated London News, often getting unusually close to the front lines.

Villiers mainly worked for The Graphic, but also contributed to Black and White, The Standard, English Illustrated Magazine and The Idler. He exhibited two Royal Academy paintings (1882 and 1883), and earned many medals and decorations from Russia, Romania, Egypt and Serbia. He gave illustrated lectures and published autobiographical works about his front-line experiences. Villiers died in London on 5 April 1922, aged 70.