William Holman Hunt (1827-1910)

   Holman Hunt was born in Cheapside, London. Even as a youth, he desired to be an artist. He gained admission to the Royal Academy Schools on his third attempt, and there met Millais and Rossetti, and together they founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. He made various journeys to the Middle East, and painted scenes of Jerusalem, religious scenes dominate many of his works.
   Arguably, of the three, Holman Hunt was the one who stayed most faithful to the Pre-Raphaelite ideas and painting techniques. His paintings are characterized by detail and use of light that sometimes makes his colors harsh. Some critics complain of the harshness of his painstaking work claiming that while interesting, his works are not beautiful to look at. Judge for yourself.
   One of his more famous paintings presented here, The Lady of Shalott, hangs in Manchester.

"The Lady of Shalott" from Poems by Alfred Tennyson, D.C.L. London, Edward Moxon, 1857