Fildes

Fildes, S. LUKE, figure-painter, was born in 1844, a native of Lancashire. He studied in the South Kensington Schools and in the Royal Academy, and became known as a woodcut designer, contributing to Once-a-Week, Cornhill, and The Graphic, and illustrating Dickens's Edwin Drood. He began to exhibit in the Royal Academy in 1868, with his 'Nightfall;' and in 1874 he produced a very popular picture, 'Applicants for Admission to a Casual Ward'—originally a Graphic woodcut, followed in 1877 by the powerful and pathetic 'Widower.' His more recent subjects have been portraits and figure-pictures of Venetian life, in which he has developed a stronger colour-sense than his earlier works gave any indication of. He was elected an A.R.A. in 1879, and an R.A. in 1887. See the Art Journal for Christmas 1895 by D. C. Thomson.