This page is a work in progress, and will be updated with additional information about Maurice Greiffenhagen.

Relationship to john william waterhouse:

Fellow artist, friend, and neighbour at Primrose Hill Studios.

Brief Biography:

GREIFFENHAGEN, Maurice William, R.A. (1862-1931)

Painter in oil of portraits, decorator, poster designer and book illustrator. Born on 15th December 1862 in London. Studied at the R.A. Schools from 1878, winning the Armitage Prize, cartoon medal and other awards. Exhibited at the R.A. from 1884, elected A.R.A. 1916 and R.A. 1922. Worked as a book illustrator, including some of Rider Haggard's novels. Headmaster, Life Department, Glasgow School of Art 1906-29*. Died in London on 26th December 1931.

Source: Dictionary of British Artists Working 1900-1950, Grant M. Waters, Eastbourne, 1975.

R.A.: Royal Academy

* Greiffenhagen had an affair with the Glaswegian writer Catherine Carswell (1879-1946), née MacFarlane. The Belgian Symbolist painter Jean Delville, who was deeply involved with the Theosophist movement, taught at Glasgow from 1900-1905.

The following is a description by G.D. Armour of Greiffenhagen when they both lived at Primrose Hill Studios, north London in the early 1890s.

"Grieffenhagen was, when in the humour, a wonderful pianist. He played the piano by instinct--there is no other word for it. I have gone with him to some kind of light opera and seen him, on our return, though almost unable to read music, sit down and give a vivid impression of what we had heard, orchestration and all. At that time he was, to my mind, the leading illustrator in London in spite of the fact that he hated the work, feeling, no doubt, that he should have been painting. The art mastership in Glasgow, which he got some time afterwards, freed him to a certain extent, and, as all know, he justified his belief in himself by becoming, perhaps, the best portrait-painter in England of his time. He was always liable to be influenced by some movement or other, sometimes almost to the extent of imitation, but sound technical ability and real artistic feeling generally enabled him to extract the good and leave the bad. He was fond of fun, and, like dear old quiet Waterhouse, took his part in all the nonsense we amused ourselves with at Primrose Hill. I remember some tableaux vivants in which we caricatured each other's pictures. Mine, being mostly of animals, were exempt, but I personally did not escape so easily, as, being the only clean-shaven member of the party, I was cast for all the female parts involved. This, to any one who knows my physical characteristics, was joke number one, and a good one. One of the pictures caricatured was Greiffenhagen's well-known "Idyll," now in the Liverpool Art Gallery. As all the world knows it represents a shepherd embracing a very pretty shepherdess among large, red poppies. A Scotsman, Torrance by name, did the part of the shepherd, I was the "pretty" shepherdess! The poppies were constructed from scarlet tissue paper, something like a sheet for each, so they certainly could not be overlooked."

Bridle and Brush: Reminiscences of an Artist Sportsman, George Denholm Armour, Eyre & Spottiswoode, London / Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1937.

DOCUMENTED RELATIONSHIP

- Greiffenhagen is listed as occupying No. 3 Primrose Hill Studios from 1890-1894. However, Waterhouse is also listed as occupying No. 3 during these years. Perhaps both artists were living elsewhere and using No.3 as their studio, or else the attribution of No. 3 for Greiffenhagen is incorrect.

- G.D. Armour mentions both Greiffenhagen and Waterhouse in his memoirs Bridle and Brush.

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