WATTS, GEORGE FREDERIC ) , English painter and sculptor, was born in London on Feb. 23, 1817. While hardly more than a boy he entered the Royal Academy schools; but his attendance was short-lived, and his further art education was confined to personal experiment and endeavour, guided and corrected by a constant appeal to the standard of ancient Greek sculpture. There are portraits of himself, painted in 1834; of Mr. James Weale, about 1835; of his father, "Little Miss Hop kins," and Mr. Richard Jarvis, painted in 1836; and in 5837 he exhibited at the Academy "The Wounded Heron" and two por traits. His first exhibited figure-subject, "Cavaliers," was shown at the Academy in 1839, and was followed in 184o by "Isabella e Lorenzo," in 1841 by "How should I your true love know?" and in 1842 by a scene from Cymbeline and a portrait of Mrs. Ionides. At the exhibition in Westminster Hall held in 1843 in connection with the decoration of the new Houses of Parliament, Watts secured' a prize of £300 for a design of "Caractacus led in triumph through the streets of Rome." This enabled him to visit Italy in 1844, and he remained there during the greater portion of the three following years, for the most part in Florence, where he enjoyed the patronage and personal friendship of Lord Holland, the British ambassador. For him he painted a portrait of Lady Holland, exhibited in 1848, and in his Villa Careggi, near the city, a fresco, after making some experimental studies in that medium, fragments of which are now in the Victoria and Albert Museum. Encouraged by Lord Holland the artist in 5847 took part in another competition, the third organized by the Royal Commissioners, this time for works in oil. Watts's car toon "Alfred inciting his subjects to prevent the landing of the Danes, or the first naval victory of the English," not only gained a first-class prize of isoo at the exhibition in Westminster Hall, but was purchased by the government, and now hangs in one of the committee rooms of the House of Commons. It led, more over, to a commission for the fresco of "St. George overcomes the Dragon" which forms part of the decorations of the Hall of the Poets in the Houses of Parliament. His offer to
paint, gratuitously, a series of frescoes illustrating "The Progress of the Cosmos" for the interior of the great hall in Euston station was refused. A similar proposition made shortly afterwards to the Benchers of Lincoln's Inn resulted in Watts's execution of the fresco, "Justice: a Hemicycle of Lawgivers," in the hall.
While this large undertaking was in progress, Watts was work ing steadily at pictures and portraits. In 1849 the first two of his great allegorical compositions were exhibited-"Life's Illu sions," an elaborate presentment of the vanity of human desires, and "The people that sat in darkness," turning eagerly towards the growing dawn. In 185o he presented to the city of Man chester, in memory of the philanthropist Thomas Wright, the picture of "The Good Samaritan." In 1856 Watts paid a visit to Lord Holland at Paris, where he was then ambassador, and through him made the acquaintance and painted the portraits of Thiers, Prince Jerome Bonaparte and other famous Frenchmen.
In 1867 Watts was elected A.R.A., in the course of the same year, R.A. Thenceforward he exhibited each year, with a few ex ceptions, at the Academy, even after his retirement in 1896, and he was also a frequent contributor to the Grosvenor Gallery, and subsequently to the New Gallery, at which a special exhibition of his works was held in the winter of 1896-1897. With intervals of travel, he spent the greater part of his life in work at his studio, either at Little Holland House, Kensington, where he settled in 1859, or in the country at Limnerslease, Compton, Sur rey. Apart from his art, his life was happily uneventful, the sole facts necessary to record being his marriage in 1886 with Miss Mary Fraser-Tytler, an early union with Miss Ellen Terry having been dissolved many years before; his twice receiving (1885 and 1894), but respectfully declining, the offer of a baronetcy; and his inclusion in June 1902 in the newly founded Order of Merit. He died on July 1,1904.