Two hundred years ago this month, the idea for what became the Royal Manchester Institution, and later the Manchester Art Gallery, came into being. It was sparked by three friends on a day out.
Star Trek © Paramount Pictures
No, not those three. These three…
“In the summer of 1823, three gentlemen residents in Manchester, namely Mr Brigham, Mr Frank Stone and the late Mr David Parry, went in company to view the exhibition of paintings and works of art in the Northern Establishment of Artists held at Leeds…
…After expressions of much delight and gratification […] the question, “why can we not have such an exhibition in our own Town?” was the almost simultaneous expression of each individual.
The meeting of artists called for the sixth of August following as stated in the accompanying minutes was a result of this visit to the Leeds exhibition of 1823 and from this association of artists arose a course of liberal and spirited proceedings on the part of a certain number of opulent Gentlemen of Manchester enthusiastic admirers of art, which eventually led to the erection of the present classical building The Royal Manchester Institution, an honour to the town, and a high source of encouragement and advancement of every branch of Art and Science.”
- Introduction to the Society of Manchester Artists Minutes of the meeting on August 6th 1823
So who were these three men whose enthusiasm provided the seed of an idea that would one day become the RMI?
Catch up on our first post about William Brigham. Collect the set!
Here, we’ll look at Frank Stone, a self-made artist…
Frank Stone (1800-1859)
He was born on 22nd October 1800. His father was Christopher Stones, who owned Knott Mill in Manchester, part of a larger collection of mills known as Brazil Mill, because they imported cotton from Brazil. (Knott Mill Station, now Deansgate, was named after the mill).
Deansgate Station © Copyright Alan Murray-Rust and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence
Stone worked for a while in his family’s textile business. However, around 1816, an arson attack destroyed the mill and Christopher Stones was ruined. Frank was put into a firm of cotton brokers. In 1823, he went to the art exhibition in Leeds with his two friends and inspired the idea of an exhibition space in Manchester. The money men, who saw the new Institution as more of a reflection of their own generosity and culture, rather than that of the artists, squeezed the Society of Manchester Artists out of the project.
Undeterred, Stone left the cotton business in 1824 to become an artist, thinking he had an assured income of £200-£300 pounds a year. However, the business went bankrupt, and he lost his income. Stone nevertheless continued his vocation and, in 1831, worked his way to London by painting portraits. Amazingly, Stone had no formal art training and was self-taught from the beginning.
Self Portrait by Frank Stone (c.1820-25) © Manchester Art Gallery. Currently on display in Gallery 5.
Between 1833-47, he found work with Charles Heath, the engraver. He was employed drawing "beauties" for the Keepsake, Book of Beauty and other annuals. At the same time, he was also exhibiting, mostly in water colour. He became an Associate of The Society of Painters in Water Colour in 1833, and a full member in 1843, before resigning from the Society in 1847.
In 1835, he married Elizabeth Benson in London and his daughter Ellen was born in 1836, followed by his son Arthur in 1838. Marcus was born in 1840 and his daughter Lillian in 1845.
In 1837, he began exhibiting in oils at the Royal Academy. At the time, he was also Secretary of the Shakespeare Club, which is where he first met Charles Dickens, William Makepeace Thackeray, and Edward Landseer, among others. Dickens and he became lifelong friends. Frank Stone, fancying himself an amateur actor, often took part in Charles Dickens’ theatrical productions.
During this time, Frank was struggling financially, and the family had to move out to Gutter End, Bushey, Herts, living in poor circumstances. It was an increasingly unhappy marriage.
When Stone returned to Manchester in 1846, Dickens penned a speech for him to give at the Athenaeum Club (now part of Manchester Art Gallery). In it, not once did the subject of the Royal Manchester Institution, just across the road, come up. Sour grapes, perhaps?
Frank Stone was also one of four artists who provided three illustrations for Charles Dickens' story, The Haunted Man, in 1848. Later, he provided extra plates for the first cheap editions of Nicholas Nickleby and Martin Chuzzlewit.
Stone’s illustrations for The Haunted Man by Charles Dickens (L) Milly and the Old Man (M) Milly and the Student ( R) Milly and the Children scanned images by Philip V. Allingham. Source.
By the late 1840s, he was also writing Fine Art reviews for The Athenaeum Magazine, an independent literary weekly.
Stone reviewed the 1849 Royal Academy show in The Athenaeum. It was here that John Everett Millais and William Holman Hunt exhibited their first pictures under the umbrella of the PRB. Millais showed The Isabella, while Holman Hunt had submitted Rienzi.
His review of their work cast the first stone, as it were, in what became a barrage of widespread criticism of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. To be fair, Dante Gabriel Rossetti must share some of the blame. Outraged on his friends’ behalf, the next time Stone showed a painting at Exhibition, he launched into him on both the artistic and personal fronts. The artist William Frith said that although Stone was a loyal but argumentative friend, “there were drawbacks to the enjoyment of Stone's society. It was enough for anyone to advance an opinion for Stone to differ from it.” It may have come as no surprise then that the next time the Pre-Raphaelites exhibited Stone’s review didn’t hold back.
“We have already in the course of our Exhibition notices of this year come in contact with the doings of a school of artists whose younger members unconsciously write its condemnation in the very title which they adopt,—that of pre-Raffaellite:—and we would not have troubled ourselves or our readers with any further remarks on the subject, were it not that eccentricities of any kind have a sort of seduction for minds that are intellectual without belonging to the better orders of intellect…”
The general criticism of the Pre-Raphaelites only abated in 1851, when John Ruskin wrote two letters to The Times defending them.
Stone, now living at Tavistock Square, next door to Dickens, had become an associate of the Royal Academy, raising his artistic standing considerably;
Though not a man of strong genius,—sentimental and safe rather than daring and great,—he had that touch of native inspiration which sets an artist apart from the crowd of mere imitators and mechanists. His pictures have a style and colour: he saw nature in the boudoir; he was the poet of chess-table flirtations and pianoforte embarrassments. But in this line he was unrivalled, though he had numberless imitators, from the moment had shown the way to a new success. He may almost be said to have founded a sect among the painters—believers in the unheaved sigh and the causeless tear!
-The Athenaeum 26th November 1859
Although, by 1856, he was struggling with ill-health owing to the stress of constant debt. His son Marcus, an artist like his father, helped him with his paintings.
Frank Stone died suddenly on 18th November, 1859. Dickens, as his executor and friend, guided his two sons. Arthur, he taught shorthand. He also recommended Marcus to his publishers, illustrating books for Charles Dickens and Anthony Trollope. Marcus Stone went on to be an artist in his own right. We have some of his works in our collection.
Read about the last of our three amigos, David Henry Parry, here.
And if you want to find out more about the beginnings of the RMI and Manchester Art Gallery, check out our History of Manchester Art Gallery Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3