Walter Sickert

Walter Sickert was a German-born British painter and printmaker, known for his role as a member of the Camden Town Group of Post-Impressionist artists in early 20th-century London. He played a significant role in shaping distinctive British styles of avant-garde art.

Biography of Walter Sickert

Walter Sickert was born in 1860, in Munich, Kingdom of Bavaria. He was the eldest son of Danish artist Oswald Sickert and his English wife, Eleanor Louisa Henry. The family moved to England in 1868, settling in London, where Sickert eventually obtained British nationality.

Sickert attended University College School and King's College School in London. Initially pursuing a career in acting, he later shifted to art in 1881, studying briefly at the Slade School before working under James Abbott McNeill Whistler.

In 1883, he visited Paris and met Edgar Degas. Degas's approach to pictorial space and his emphasis on drawing had a profound impact on Sickert's work. Following Degas's advice, Sickert painted in the studio, drawing on his sketches and memory.

In 1888, Sickert joined the New English Art Club, a group of artists influenced by French realism. His first major works, created in the late 1880s, depicted scenes from London music halls.

In the late 1880s, he spent considerable time in France, during which he began writing art criticism for various publications. Between 1894 and 1904, Sickert made several trips to Venice, initially concentrating on the city's topography.

Sickert's fascination with urban culture led him to acquire studios in working-class areas of London, initially in Cumberland Market during the 1890s and later in Camden Town in 1905.

Just before the First World War, Sickert supported avant-garde artists such as Lucien Pissarro, Jacob Epstein, Augustus John, and Wyndham Lewis. Simultaneously, he co-founded the Camden Town Group of British painters with other artists. Although the group had been meeting informally since 1905, it was officially established in 1911. Influenced by Post-Impressionism and Expressionism, the group focused on depicting the often dreary aspects of suburban life.

From 1908 to 1912 and from 1915 to 1918, he was a teacher at Westminster School of Art, where his students included David Bomberg, Wendela Boreel, Mary Godwin, and John Doman Turner.

In 1920, Sickert moved to Dieppe, where he painted scenes of casinos and café life until his return to London in 1922. In 1924, he was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy.

In 1926, the artist experienced an illness believed to be a minor stroke. In 1927, he dropped his first name in favor of his middle name, choosing to be known as Richard Sickert from then on. During this period, his style and subject matter shifted: he ceased drawing and began painting from snapshots, often taken by his third wife, Thérèse Lessore, or from news photographs.

Sickert tutored and mentored students of the East London Group and exhibited with them at The Lefevre Gallery in November 1929. He completed his last etching in the same year. He served as President of the Royal Society of British Artists from 1928 to 1930. In March 1934, he was elected a Royal Academician (RA) but resigned later. 

The artist died in 1942 in Bath, Somerset. 

Walter Sickert's Art Style

Walter Sickert was a cosmopolitan and eccentric artist who frequently focused on ordinary people and urban scenes. His work encompasses portraits of notable personalities and images inspired by press photographs. He is regarded as a significant figure in the shift from Impressionism to Modernism.

In his earliest paintings, Sickert emulated Whistler's technique of rapid, wet-in-wet application with very fluid paint. Later, he adopted a more methodical approach, creating his works in multiple stages. Rather than painting directly from nature, he preferred to work from drawings. After the mid-1920s, his sources expanded to include photographs and popular prints by Victorian illustrators.

Sickert’s style includes domestic interiors, Venice scenes, and music hall and theatre settings. He often used complex viewpoints in his music hall paintings, creating a sense of disorientation and failed communication. His work features patterns and architectural details that flatten spatial dimensions, linking his art to theatrical performance.

Despite his criticism of thick, textured paint, Sickert's "Camden Town Murder" series and other pre-World War I nudes employed heavy impasto. In the 1910s and 1920s, his use of color brightened, and his later works are characterized by thin, translucent layers of paint.