Richardson, Thomas Miles Jr.

Born in 1813, Thomas Miles Richardson Jr. was one of the six artist sons of Newcastle painter Thomas Miles Richardson. Trained by his father, Richardson left Newcastle and moved to London in 1843.

His colorful paintings of northern England and the Scottish Highlands, as well as his scenic panoramas of Italy and Switzerland, enjoyed great popularity and fetched high prices.

Between 1875 and 1880, Richardson gave weekly painting lessons to Nabeshima Taneko and Hyakutake Kaneyuki, who had come to England to study with the Iwakura Mission. Hyakutake later became a career diplomat, but was inspired by his lessons with Richardson and continued to study Western oil painting techniques in Paris and Rome. Remarkably, he became the first Japanese artist to have an oil painting shown in an exhibition abroad, and he is credited with creating some of the earliest nude oil paintings by a Japanese artist.

Richardson died in January 1890, following a few years of poor health, and the contents of his studio were sold at Christie's in London. A large group of landscapes by the artist are now in the collection of the Laing Art Gallery in Newcastle, while several others are in London’s Victoria and Albert Museum.