WOOD, William

1768 - 1809

William Wood was baptised at Ipswich on 21 August 1768. He is listed in Dictionary of Pastellists before 1800 as a miniaturist, of Suffolk in 1769 and of London 1810. William Wood entered the Royal Academy Schools in 1785 when just sixteen years of age. He is known to have been working from Bristol in 1791 and 1803 and from Gloucester in 1798. A member of the Society of Painters in Water Colours, later Royal Watercolour Society but the exclusive nature of its constitution, under which its walls were reserved entirely for Members and Associates, left room for another exhibition, still confined to watercolour drawings, but on a more enlarged plan, and open to all members of the profession. It was thought that a society formed on a more comprehensive scale should be formed and a meeting was held on 24 June 1807 at the Thatched House Tavern with William Wood occupying the Chair with a list of names drawn up as the first members of a new association. The members were William James Bennett (1787−1844), Henry Pierce Bone (1779-1855), James Green (1771–1834), Jean Francois Marie Huet-Villiers (1772-1813), John Laporte (1761–1839), Andrew Robertson (1777–1845), William John Thompson (1771–1845), William Walker, jun., Walter Henry Watts (1776–1842), Hugh William Williams (1773–1829), and William Wood. At a subsequent meeting it assumed the same title 'The Society of Painters in Water-Colours' which adds to the confusion existing between the two Societies, but the name was changed to 'The New Society of Painters in Miniature and Water-Colours' and then on 14 January 1808 when they adopted the name 'Associated Artists in Water Colours'. Further confusion was added when 'Associated Artists' held their first exhibition at the same place as the original Society at Tresham's Rooms at 20 Lower Brook Street on 25 April 1808: - (Yale Center for British Art)
'Catalogue of the first exhibition / by the Associated Artists in Water Colours; open from nine until dusk at 20, Lower Brook Street, Grosvenor Square.
London: Printed by J. Moyes, Shoe Lane, Fleet Street, 1808.'
William Wood was President, Andrew Robertson, Secretary with other members Alfred Chalon (1780-1860), Mrs. Green, Samuel Owen (1768–1857), John Buonarotti Papworth (1775–1847), Miss Emma Smith (1783–1853), William Westall (1781-1850) and Andrew Wilson (1780–1848) and there were a further eighteen exhibitors including Thomas Baxter (1782–1821), Richard Dagley (c.1761–1841), Peter De Wint, Franηois Louis Thomas Francia (1772–1839), James Holmes (1777–1860), Frederick Nash (1782–1856), John Christian Schetky (1778–1874) and Joseph Clarendon Smith (1778–1810). To add to confusions William James Bennett, Peter De Wint, James Holmes, Frederick Nash, William Walker, jun. and William Westall were also members or Associates of the original Society of Painters in Water Colours and Hugh William Williams was an unsuccessful candidate in 1807. Wood became a founder member the breakaway group of the Associated Artists in Watercolour which in 1808 it changed its name to the and held a position of president 1808-09, exhibiting frequently with the group. Wood’s interests in the arts lay not just in miniature painting and in 1808 he published 'An Essay on National and Sepulchral Monuments' as well as reputedly displaying a keen interest in landscape gardening. William Wood was buried in Bunhill Field's Burial Ground on 23 November 1809.

Catalogue of the first exhibition / by the Associated Artists in Water Colours; open from nine until dusk at 20, Lower Brook Street, Grosvenor Square.
London: Printed by J. Moyes, Shoe Lane, Fleet Street, 1808.
Yale Center for British Art

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Works by This Artist