Sickert, Walter Richard (1860-1942), was a German-born British artist whose technical brilliance and bold style had a great influence on painting in the United Kingdom. Sickert was an important advocate of modern French painting, and his art, opinions, and strong personality inspired many British artists. He was a leading member of the New English Art Club, an association of British artists, but later broke away from it to found the Camden Town Group in 1911 and the London Group in 1913. For subject matter, Sickert favored urban scenes and the human figure, both nudes and portraits. He enjoyed painting scenes of theater life as well as dreary domestic interiors. Sickert was also a noted printmaker and an art critic. His writings on art were collected in A Free House! Or the Artist as Craftsman, published in 1947 after his death.
Sickert was born on May 31, 1860, in Munich, Germany. His family settled in England in 1868. Sickert studied at the Slade School, in London, where he became a pupil of the American painter James Whistler in 1882. He lived in France, especially in Dieppe, from 1885 to 1905 and again from 1918 to 1922. Sickert was elected to the Royal Academy in 1934. He died on Jan. 22, 1942.
See also Whistler, James Abbott McNeill.
