• Campbell Julian
  

• OSBORNE, William
  
• OSBORNE, Walter Frederick
  

• 
  Winter 2023
  Volume 40. No. 4

• Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin

In 1942 Welsh painter Augustus John remarked, ‘fifty years after my death I shall be remembered as Gwen John’s brother’. There have been many other artist families and dynasties, such as the Mulreadys, the Danbys, the Catterson Smiths, the Yeatses and the Nicholsons, but changes of fortune have occurred in the reputations of many painters who were eminent in their lifetimes. During his life William Osborne was a prominent Irish artist, a respected member of the Royal Hibernian Academy (RHA) who was frequently praised as Ireland’s best animal painter. Walter G Strickland wrote that Osborne ‘devoted himself to the painting of animals, chiefly dogs and horses, which he loved and thoroughly understood’. Yet, after his death, his reputation was eclipsed by that of this son, so that he was sometimes referred to as ‘the father of Walter Osborne’, and he became a slightly less familiar figure in the history of Irish art.

William Osborne’s life was not without personal tragedies and professional difficulties. He was orphaned as a child and, in his old age, his only daughter died in childbirth. At the height of his career, political events led to him losing much commissioned work. Yet he seemed to rise above these adversities, exhibiting at the RHA for fifty years, with his work being praised by critics, and meanwhile nurturing the talents of his son Walter. Although conventional, he was a highly skilled painter whose work shows a real empathy for animals. He also painted portraits and genre scenes. He was a sensitive draftsman and often sketched at Dublin Zoo; some of his finest paintings are of lions, tigers and leopards.

To read this article in full, subscribe or buy this edition of the Irish Arts Review