Cayley Robinson, Frederick

Person

Cayley Robinson, Frederick

1862-1927

Born in Brentford, Cayley Robinson was the son of a stockbroker and studied at St John's Wood Academy, the Royal Academy Schools and then the Académie Julian in Paris from 1890 to 1892. He lived for several years in Florence, where he studied the art of Giotto, Mantegna and Michelangelo, and took up painting in tempera.

A member of the Society of Painters in Tempera, the New English Art Club and the Royal Watercolour Society, Cayley Robinson exhibited regularly at the RA, the Old Water-Colour Society, The Royal Society of British Artists and the Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts.

Apart from his easel paintings, Cayley Robinson was highly regarded as a mural painter. Perhaps his finest works in this field are a series of four enormous oil paintings on canvas collectively known as The Acts of Mercy. Painted for the entrance hall of Middlesex Hospital in London, they were commissioned from the artist in 1910 and painted between 1915 and 1920. He also designed sets and costumes for the theatre and produced illustrations.

From 1914 he lived in London in a block of studios in Lansdowne Road which also housed the artists Charles Ricketts, Charles Shannon, Glyn Philpot and James Pryde. This remained his home until his death, although he spent three months every year until 1924 in Glasgow, as Professor (Drawing & Painting) Landscape and figure composition: mural and decorative painting at the Glasgow School of Art. Letters from Francis H. Newbery, Director of Glasgow School of Art, 1885-1918, refer to this appointment - GSAA/DIR/5/17 and GSAA/DIR/5/31

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