SANDYS, Frederick

1829 - 1904

Antonio Frederic Augustus Sands, but is better known as Anthony Frederick Augustus Sandys or just Frederick Sandys, was born at 17 St Giles (Grapes) Hill, Norwich on 1 May 1829 and baptised at St Stephen's Church, Norwich on 3 May 1829, son of Anthony Sands (1806-17 February 1883), a drawing master and portrait and subject painter, and his wife Mary Ann née Browne (1809-1896), who married at Lakenheath, Suffolk on 22 December 1828. Young Frederick received his earliest lessons in art from his father and first exhibited a drawing at the Norwich Art Union in 1839, the catalogue gives his age as 10, and he continued to exhibit there until 1852, when his address was 2 Osnaburgh Street, Bloomsbury, London. Frederick was educated at Norwich Grammar School and in 1846 attended the Norwich School of Design and his early studies show that he had a natural gift for careful and beautiful drawing and an early patron was the Revd James Bulwer, rector of Stody, Norfolk and a former pupil of Cotman for whom Sandys made architectural and antiquarian drawings and etched his drawings. Sandys exhibited at the Royal Society of Arts winning medals in 1846 and 1847 and, as A. Sands, exhibited at the Suffolk Fine Arts Association at Ipswich in 1850 'Dead Game'. By 1851, the year he first exhibited at the Royal Academy, he had moved to London although he exhibited as A Sands of Norwich at the British Institution in 1859. He married at St Pancras, London in 1853, Georgiana Creed (born 1830), daughter of Jonathan Creed, a Norwich artist, but this marriage only lasted three years, and they petitioned for divorce in 1863. Around 1855, Sands changed the spelling of his name to Sandys although he exhibited as A Sands from Norwich. A precocious draughtsman, he worked as an illustrator and portraitist, but in the late 1850s and early 1860s he also painted in oils. Sandys first became acquainted with the Pre-Raphaelites in 1857 while working on an engraving of Millais 'Sir Isumbras at the Ford' when he called on Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882) in order to get an accurate likeness for the engraving, and they became friends and for most of 1866 he stayed with Rossetti at 16 Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, and went on a walking tour with him in October that year, but they later fell out. He had a long affair with the Romany woman Keomi Gray, by whom he had two sons and two daughters, Keomi sat as a model both for him and Rossetti. In the late 1860s he met Mary Emma Jones, the actress Mary Clive, when she modelled for 'The Magdalen' and a relationship developed, and he took her as his common-law wife for the rest of his life and by whom he had at least ten children. He showed regularly at the Royal Academy from 1851 to 1886, and at the Grosvenor Gallery, London from 1877. His first independent illustration appeared in the Cornhill Magazine in 1860 and among his later works was a series of chalk portraits of writers, commissioned in 1880 by Alexander Macmillan. He became a founder member of the International Society of Sculptors Painters in 1898. Frederick Sandys died at Kensington, London on 25 June 1904.

Royal Academy Exhibits
from
1851 1074 Portrait of Lord Henry Loftus - drawing
from 21 Wigmore Street, Cavendish Square, London
1855 1096 Rev. Thomas Freeman - drawing
1856 719 A Portrait - drawing
         855 Rev. Thomas Randolph - drawing
1858 693 Lady Wenlock - drawing
from Thorpe, near Norwich
1861 178 Mrs. W. Cabburn, of Thorpe, Norwich
         639 Oriana
1862 350 Mrs. Clabborn
         361 King Pelles' daughter bearing the vessel of the Sanegraal
         789 Mrs. Doulton
         805 Autumn - pen and ink study
         809 Mrs. Rose - drawing
1863 53 Mrs. Susanna Rose
         606 La Belle Ysonde
         707 Vivien
1864 519 'Morgan-le-fey'
         546 Portrait
         686 Judith - pen and ink
1865 359 Gentle Spring
         503 Cassandra
from 47 Leicester Square, London
1868 735 Study of a head
         816 George Critchett, Esq.
1869 99 Medea
         714 Mrs. Barstow
1871 468 W. H. Clabburn, Esq.
         803 The children of J. J. Colman, Esq., M.P.
         805 W. Clabburn, Esq.
from 1 Spenser Street, Victoria Street, Westminster
1873 1267 Leopold de Rothschild, Esq. - drawing
         1269 Frederick A. Milbank, Esq., M.P. - drawing
         1303 Mrs. Frederick A. Milbank - drawing
         1313 Mrs. William Bond - drawing
1875 1058 Portrait - chalk
         1076 Miss Ellis
         1212 Mrs. Brand
1876 1139 Mrs. Charles Augustus Howell
1878 1187 Cyril Flowers, Esq. - chalk
1879 429 Mrs. Temple Soanes
1880 1233 James Brand, Esq. - chalk
         1289 Ethel and Mabel - chalk
from 129 Wardour Street, Soho
1882 1263 Robert Browning, Esq. - drawing
         1272 His Excellency the Hon. J. Russell Lowell - drawing
         1281 Goldwin Smith, Esq. - drawing
         1282 Matthew Arnold, Esq. - drawing
1883 1330 Mrs. H. Chinnery - chalk
         1339 Mrs. Chappell - chalk
from The Cottage, Holland Park Road, Kensington
1886 1083 William Gillilam, Esq. - drawing

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Works by This Artist