George Goodwin Kilburne

George Goodwin Kilburne, The Finishing Touch, Watercolour

c. 1910

Kilburne was born in Hackford, near Reepham, Norfolk and was educated at Hawkhurst, Kent. At the age of 15 he went to London to serve a five-year apprenticeship as a wood engraver with the Dalziel brothers. He remained with the firm for a further year before leaving to take up watercolour and oil painting professionally, quickly becoming a highly successful and busy artist. His paintings often portrayed fashionably dressed figure groups, sometimes in Regency costume. The themes included musical gatherings, social events and sporting occasions. He also designed and executed a great number of greetings and Christmas cards for the firms of Raphael Tuck & Sons and de la Rue. He contributed a large number of black and white pictures to The Graphic, The Illustrated London News and Cassell’s Magazine. For much of his working life Kilburne lived in fashionable Hampstead, north London. He exhibited at the Royal Academy, Grosvenor Gallery and elsewhere and was a member of the Royal Society of Painters in Water Colours, Royal Miniature Society, Royal Institute of Oil Painters. Works by him are in the collections of the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool, Manchester City Art Gallery and Sheffield Art Gallery. His eldest son, George Goodwin Kilburne Jnr, also became a very successful artist.