First Steps

oil on canvas
69 x 92.4 cm.
Alder Hey Children's NHS Foundation Trust, Liverpool, United Kingdom

Frederick Morgan, was an English painter of portraits, animals, domestic and country scenes. He became famous for his idyllic genre scenes of childhood.
Morgan was born in London. He was commonly known as Fred Morgan and was the son of John Morgan, a successful genre artist sometimes known as 'Jury Morgan' (after one of his paintings "The Gentlemen of the Jury").
At the age of fourteen he was taken out of school by his father who then tutored him in art. At the age of 16, while still studying with his father, his first picture, "The Rehearsal", was exhibited at the Royal Academy, and, after a hiatus of several years, his paintings were shown there regularly. For a while he worked as a portrait artist for an Aylesbury photographer, - this training proved to be crucial as it "taught him how to observe closely and to give the greatest attention to detail."
Although an excellent portrait artist, Morgan had problems in depicting pets and barnyard animals - he enlisted the aid of either Arthur John Elsley or Allen Sealey (1850–1927) when such problems needed resolving.
He is known mostly for his romantic and sentimental paintings of children in the same style as his contemporary Arthur John Elsley. His paintings achieved great popularity in his lifetime and were widely published.
In 1872 he married another painter, Alice Mary Havers (1850–1890); they had three children. Their eldest son, known as Val Havers, also developed into a painter. Frederick Morgan married twice more, producing two children from the second marriage.

CZ