George Owen Wynne Apperley
Pages: 1-2-3-4
(1884-1960)
He was born in Ventnor in an aristocratic family, during the apogee
of Victorian England. Very fond of reading, his favorite volume was
a mythology book illustrated with engravings of Flaxman. His family
sent him to two boarding schools, with the intention to separate him
from his artistic inclinations for these could lead him to a
Bohemian and unstable profession. In spite of the opposition of his
family, he enters the Herkomer Academy in 1903, a reputed learning
center near London.
1904 is the year of his longed-for first trip to Italy, where he
reinforces his passion for the classic world, which intones
perfectly with the Pre-Raphaelite taste. To his return he begins
exposing his works, acquiring a fast recognition which makes him to
be titled, in 1913, member of the Royal Institute of Watercolorists
of London.
1914 marks a course change in the life of the painter, on the one
hand, Apperley starts to be more and more interested in portrait
painting, in detriment of his activity as landscapist, on the other
hand, he travels to Spain, and in spite of a somewhat confused first
impression, will be later, in 1916, the country in which he will
reside. In Granada he will develop his maturity years as painter,
fascinated by the Andalusian woman and the sensuality of the land.
In 1918 it was organized his first individual exhibition, in the
Palace Hotel of Madrid, where his work was praised by the kings
Alfonso XIII and Victoria Eugenia. This success provided him a
relieved economic situation, that made of its study in Granada a
place of appointment of painters and aristocrats from all Europe.
During the first years of the Second Spanish Republic, the
traditionalistic position of Apperley leads him to diverse
confrontations, which culminate with the positioning of a bomb on
his home. This fact causes him to move, in 1933, to Tangier, where
he definitively fixes his residence, remaining there until his
death, due to a cerebral hemorrhage.
