Albert Chevallier Tayler

Gregor MacGregor, Empire Cricketeer, Scottish cricket sport portrait lithograph

1905

Albert Chevallier Tayler was an English artist who specialized in portrait and genre painting but was also involved in the Plein air methods of the Newlyn School. He was born on April 5, 1862, in London. He studied at Heatherley's School of Art, Royal Academy Schools and avant-garde painters in Paris. He was educated at Bloxham School in Oxfordshire and won a scholarship to study at the Slade in 1879. He is most known for his twelve-year involvement with the Newlyn School. Like most of the Newlyn artists, he also trained in France, attending Laurens' atelier in Paris. He arrived in Newlyn in September 1884, the same year that Stanhope Forbes joined the growing colony of artists. Tayler's initial visit lasted only a few weeks and throughout his time as a Newlyner, he continued to visit other parts of England for months at a time. Tayler was a particular exponent of the square brush technique adopted by many of the Newlyn artists in the emulation of French painters, particularly Jules Bastien-Lepage. During the 1890s he maintained connections with the art center of London and exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy; however, at about the turn of the century, he moved to London and converted to a more genteel, urban lifestyle. Tayler began painting more grand scenes of the cities of Europe. In 1901 he painted one of his largest and most masterful works, The Ceremony of the Garter, depicting the famous late Middle Ages scene at Eltham Palace in which the fallen garter of Joan of Kent is picked up by King Edward III. By 1903, Tayler was renowned and was commissioned to paint a large panel at the Royal Exchange in London, the resultant painting of The Five Kings depicts Kings Edward III of England, David of Scotland, Peter I of Cyprus, John of France and Waldemar IV of Denmark partaking in a feast hosted by the Master of the Society of Vintners in London in 1363. Tayler was an avid cricketer and in 1905 produced a set of twelve watercolors of famous and mostly royal cricket players. Lord Leverhulme used the series to produce lithographs and advertise his Lever Brothers soap products. The promotion proved popular and the National Portrait Gallery, London has nine of these images hanging. In 1906, he painted a famous picture of a cricket match in progress, Kent vs Lancashire at Canterbury, which was commissioned by Kent. In June 2006, the county sold the painting at auction for £680,000, a record price for a cricket painting. He died on December 20, 1925, in London.