Martin Archer Shee

{{Short description|Irish painter and president of the Royal Academy (1769–1850)}}

{{Infobox officeholder

|honorific_prefix = Sir

|name = Martin Archer Shee

|honorific_suffix = {{post-nominals|country=GBR|PRA|FRS|size=100%}}

|image = Martin Archer Shee selfportrait.jpg

|office = President of the Royal Academy

|term = January 1830 – 13 August 1850

|predecessor = Sir Thomas Lawrence

|successor = Sir Charles Lock Eastlake

|caption = Self-portrait (1794)

|birth_date = {{birth date|1769|12|23|df=y}}

|birth_place = Dublin, Ireland

|death_date = {{death date and age|1850|08|13|1769|12|23|df=y}}

|death_place = Brighton, Sussex, England

|known_for = Portraiture

}}

Sir Martin Archer Shee {{post-nominals|country=GBR|PRA|FRS}} (23 December 1769 – 13 August 1850) was an Irish portrait painter. He also served as the president of the Royal Academy.

Early life

He was born in Dublin, of an old Irish Roman Catholic family, the son of Martin Shee, a merchant, who regarded the profession of a painter as an unsuitable occupation for a descendant of the Shees. His son Martin nevertheless studied art in the Royal Dublin Society and came to London. There, in 1788, he was introduced by Edmund Burke[https://books.google.com/books?id=KdgPAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA483 THE EUROPEAN MAGAZINE, AND LONDON REVIEW: ILLUSTRATIVE OF THE LITERATURE, HISTORY, BIOGEAPHY, POLITICS, ART, MANNERS, AND AMUSEMENTS OF THE AGE.] to Joshua Reynolds, on whose advice he studied in the schools of the Royal Academy of Arts.

Career

In 1789, he exhibited his first two pictures, the Head of an Old Man and Portrait of a Gentleman. Over the next ten years he steadily increased in practice. He was chosen an associate of the Royal Academy in 1798.

In 1789, he married Mary, eldest daughter of James Power of Youghal, and in 1800 he was elected a Royal Academician. He moved to George Romney's former house at 32 Cavendish Square, and set up as his successor. In addition to his portraits he executed various subjects and historical works, such as Lavinia, Belisarius, his diploma picture Prospero and Miranda, and the Daughter of Jephthah.{{cn|date=December 2022}}

=Writing=

File:William IV by Sir Martin Archer Shee.jpg. Portrait of William, Duke of Clarence, 1800]]

File:Portrait of Henry Grattan -Martin Archer Shee .PNG, a friend of Archer Shee.]]

In 1805 he published a poem consisting of Rhymes on Art, and a second part followed in 1809. Lord Byron spoke well of it in his English Bards and Scotch Reviewers. Shee published another small volume of verse in 1814, entitled The Commemoration of Sir Joshua Reynolds, and other Poems, but this was less successful. He also produced a tragedy, Alasco, set in Poland. The play was accepted at Covent Garden, but was refused a licence, on the grounds that it contained treasonable allusions, and Shee angrily resolved to make his appeal to the public. He carried out his threat in 1824, but Alasco was still on the list of unacted dramas in 1911. He also published two novels – Oldcourt (1829, in three volumes) and Cecil Hyde (1834).{{cn|date=December 2022}}

On the death of Sir Thomas Lawrence in 1830, Shee was chosen president of the Royal Academy in his stead and shortly afterwards received a knighthood. In 1831, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. {{cn|date=December 2022}}

In an examination before the parliamentary committee of 1836 concerning the functions of the Royal Academy, he ably defended its rights. He continued to paint till 1845, when illness made him retire to Brighton. He was deputised for at the Academy by J. M. W. Turner, who had appointed him a trustee of the projected Turner almshouse. From 1842 to 1849, he was the first president of the Birmingham Society of Artists.{{cite journal|last=Anon|year=1933|title=The Spring Exhibition, 1933 (catalogue)|publisher=RBSA}}

Death

Shee died in Brighton in 1850 and was buried in the western extension to St Nicholas' Churchyard in Brighton. His headstone remains, but has been laid flat and moved to the perimeter of the site.{{cite book|last=Dale|first=Antony|title=Brighton Cemeteries|publisher=Brighton Borough Council|location=Brighton|year=1991|page=8}}

Personal life

Shee had three sons, who became successful barristers, and three daughters.

Descendants of one of the sons was George Archer-Shee, whose story inspired The Winslow Boy, a play written by Sir Terence Rattigan and his older half-brother, Martin Archer-Shee MP.

Shee's descendant, Mary Archer-Shee, supports the campaign for the fulfilment of Turner's wishes for his bequests.

Written works by Shee (selected)

[https://archive.org/details/elementsofartpoe00sheeuoft Elements of art, a poem; in six cantos] (1809)
[https://archive.org/details/rhymesonartorre00sheegoog Rhymes on Art; Or, The Remonstrance of a Painter: in Two Parts] (1809)
[https://archive.org/details/commemorationre00sheegoog The Commemoration of Reynolds: In Two Parts] (1814)
Oldcourt: [https://archive.org/details/oldcourtnovel01shee Volume 1], [https://archive.org/details/oldcourtnovel02shee Volume 2], [https://archive.org/details/oldcourtnovel03shee Volume 3] (London : H. Colburn, 1829)
[https://archive.org/details/alascoatragedyi00sheegoog Alasco: A Tragedy, in Five Acts] (Sherwood, Jones, and co., 1824).

Gallery

File:Martin Archer Shee - John Philip Kemble - 1925.587 - Art Institute of Chicago.jpg|John Philip Kemble, c.1795

File:Anne Luttrell duchess of Cumberland and Strathearn.jpg|Duchess of Cumberland, c.1795

File:Sir Martin Archer Shee portrait Anna Margaretta Larpent in a white dress with a blue sash.jpg|Anna Larpent, c.1800

File:John Henry Johnstone portrait.png|John Henry Johnstone, 1803

File:Portrait of the 6th Duke of Devonshire (Archer Shee).png| Marquess of Hartington, 1806

File:Sir Thomas Picton by Sir Martin Archer Shee.jpg|Thomas Picton, 1812

File:Henry Vassall Webster.jpg|Henry Vassall Webster, c.1814

File:Edward Kerrison.png|Edward Kerrison, 1814

File:Martin Archer Shee - William Roscoe - Google Art Project.jpg|William Roscoe, c.1815-17

File:Sharon Turner by Sir Martin Archer Shee.jpg|Sharon Turner, 1817

File:Sir Thomas Munro, 1st Bt by Sir Martin Archer Shee.jpg|Thomas Munro, 1819

File:Jane, Lady Munro by Sir Martin Archer Shee.jpg|Lady Munro, 1819

File:The Painter's Son.png|The Painter's Son, 1820

File:Alexander Macdonell.jpg|Alexander Macdonell, 1823

File:Thomas Denman, 1st Baron Denman by Sir Martin Archer Shee.jpg|Lord Denman, 1832

File:Sir Martin Archer Shee (1769-1850) - Richard Colley Wellesley, Marquess Wellesley (1760-1842) - RCIN 404332 - Royal Collection.jpg|Marquess Wellesley, 1832

File:William IV in 1833 by Shee cropped.jpg|Portrait of William IV, 1833

File:Martin Archer Shee (1769-1850) - John Cust (1779–1853), 1st Earl Brownlow, GCH, FRS, MP - 436206 - National Trust.jpg|Lord Brownlow, c.1835

File:Sir Martin Archer Shee (1769-1850) - Henry Paget (1768-1854), 2nd Earl of Uxbridge and 1st Marquess of Anglesey - RCIN 401453 - Royal Collection.jpg|Marquess of Anglesey, 1836

File:Shee - Queen Adelaide - Royal Collection.jpg|Portrait of Queen Adelaide, 1836

File:Sir Francis Burdett, 5th Bt by Sir Martin Archer Shee.jpg|Sir Francis Burdett, 1843

Bibliography

Martin Archer Shee, The Life of Sir Martin Archer Shee, [https://archive.org/stream/lifeofsirmartina01sheeiala#page/n7/mode/2up Volume 1], [https://archive.org/stream/lifeofsirmartina02sheeiala#page/n7/mode/2up Volume 2] (London: Longman, Green, Longman, and Roberts, 1860).{{cite journal|title=Review of The Life of Sir Martin Archer Shee, President of the Royal Academy by his son, Martin Archer Shee, of the Inner Temple, Esq. Barrister-at-Law, 2 vols.|journal=The Athenaeum|date=May 26, 1860|issue=1700|pages=711–713|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kbRHAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA711}}

Notes

References

{{Cite EB1911|wstitle=Shee, Sir Martin Archer}}

External links

{{Art UK bio}}
[http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/shee_sir_martin_archer.html Sir Martin Archer Shee online] (ArtCyclopedia)
[http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/biographies-of-irish-artists/martin-archer-shee.htm Biography of M. A. Shee] (Encyclopedia of Irish and World Art)
[http://www.metmuseum.org/works_of_art/collection_database/european_paintings/william_archer_shee_1810_1899_the_artist_s_son_sir_martin_archer_shee/objectview.aspx?collID=11&OID=110002115 William Archer Shee, the artist's son] (Oil on canvas, Ca. 1820 – Metropolitan Museum of Art)
[http://onlinecollection.nationalgallery.ie/objects/1528/sir-martin-archer-shee-17691859-portrait-painter-and-pre?ctx=8ead7e3e-aa17-4732-aa49-aac4a9ed80fa&idx=13 Portrait by Thomas Bridgford ]