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School of Art
Aberystwyth University
Buarth Mawr
Aberystwyth
Ceredigion
SY23 1NG

Tel: +44 (0)1970 622460

Fax: +44 (0)1970 622461

Email: artschool@aber.ac.uk

Display artist/maker:

Josiah Wood Whymper

Born: 1813, UK, England, Ipswich Died: 1903, UK. England, Surrey, Haslemere

Painter, engraver and illustrator. Son of Nathaniel Whimper, a brewer and Ipswich town councillor. Father of Edward Whymper (1840-1911), engraver and mountaineer. Whymper was apprenticed to a stone mason, planning to become a sculptor, but an accident terminated that career prematurely. Instead, he studied watercolour painting with William Collingwood Smith (1815-87) in London. With his brother Ebenezzar, and later on his own, he set up a wood-engraving business in London and received commissions from publishers such as John Murray to illustrate, e. g. Byron’s Childe Harold. He also worked for periodicals such as the Illustrated London News and Sunday at Home. In addition, he trained well-known illustrators such as Charles Keene (1823-91) and Frederick Walker (1840-75). As a watercolourist, he was elected associate of the New Watercolour Society in 1854 and member in 1857. He also exhibited at the Society of British Artists, the Royal Academy and the Royal Institute of Painters in Oil-Colours. In 1898, he became president of the Haslemere Society of Artists.