Robert Morley Animal Paintings

Robert Morley was born at Kentish Town, London, on November 19th, 1857. He was the second son of Professor Henry Morley, LLD and his wife Mary Anne née Stagle. In 1871, he was a 13-year-old student living at Upper Park Road, St John, Hampstead with his mother and his four siblings, Violet, Henry Foster, Margaret and Edith Caroline aged 17, 15, 11 and 6 respectively. He was educated at the Slade School of Fine Art under a well-known painter, Alphonse Legros and afterward in Munich and Rome. He was a Slade scholar and Painting Medalist. In 1881, he was still living at 8 Upper Park Road, Hampstead with his father Henry, a professor of engineering at University College, London and two siblings, Henry and Margaret. He got married to Mary Hodgkinson at Manchester in 1895, and they moved to Tilford Farm House, Farnham Royal, Surrey. They stayed there till 1911 with a visitor and one servant and later they all moved to Stroud, Gloucestershire. Morley was a painter of animal subjects, landscapes, genre and historical subjects. He was exhibiting largely figure subjects but after 1888 turned to just animal painting and landscape. He exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1884, and in 1921, he exhibited at the Society of Animal Painters and in 1922 at the Society of British Artists The Manor Farm 1693. He was a member of the Royal Society of British Artists 1889 and subsequently Hon. Morley was a treasurer between 1890–96 and a member of the Ipswich Fine Art Club between 1919–26. He was exhibiting in 1919 from The Dial House, Frensham two oils A Garden Gate and Where Wild Fowl Call and in 1921 In Doubt and In Off. In 1924, he exhibited from Langford, Lechdale, Gloucestershire two further oils In the Lull of the World and First Come, First Served. Morley died at Stroud, Gloucestershire in 1941, aged 83.