page_title: Benjamin Williams Leader
section_title: Career
hierarchical_section_title: Benjamin Williams Leader / Life and work / Career
caption_attribution_description: English: A Golden Eve by Benjamin Leader 1875
context_page_description: Benjamin Williams Leader RA was an English landscape painter.
context_section_description: The inspiration for these early works was the countryside around Worcester itself, "the cottages, farmhouses, lanes, hedgerows and churches, so exceedingly picturesque and beautiful". However, Leader did not finish his course of studies at the R. A, nor did he need to – his paintings proved to be in great demand by wealthy buyers and he achieved an enviable degree of commercial success within only a few years of his first sale.
  In 1857 he changed his name to Benjamin Williams Leader to distinguish himself from the many other painters with the surname Williams. In autumn of that year he travelled to Scotland, and painted A Quiet pool in Glen Falloch – exhibited at the R. A. in 1859. That year was his most successful yet with four paintings hung at the Academy and all sold, one of the buyers being the art dealer Agnew's who bought much of his work during his lifetime. Such was the demand that much of his best work now went to private galleries and was never publicly exhibited.
  For the next 10 years, Leader divided his time painting between the Severn Valley, Worcestershire, and Wales, producing many canvases. Amongst them, Autumn's last Gleam was regarded as the best landscape in the Royal Academy's 1865 exhibition. In 1862 he moved home from Worcester to nearby Whittington (where he lived until 1889) which became a favourite sketching ground. In 1863, his work The Churchyard at Bettwys-y-Coed was purchased by the Prime Minister himself, William Gladstone.
  In August 1876, Leader married fellow artist Mary Eastlake (born c. 1852) and they went on to have 6 children – the first, Benjamin Eastlake Leader (1877–1916), also an artist, was killed in action during World War I.
  
  In 1881, February Fill Dyke was exhibited at the Royal Academy to great acclaim and Leader was made an associate (ARA) in 1883, becoming a Royal Academician (RA) in 1898.
caption: A Golden Eve by Benjamin Leader 1875
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon EOS 450D", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image DateTime": "2013:09:29 11:34:04", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "196", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "9648", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "9091", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/8", "EXIF FNumber": "9/2", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "1600", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2013:09:29 11:34:04", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2013:09:29 11:34:04", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "3", "EXIF ApertureValue": "35/8", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Partial", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "37", "EXIF SubSecTime": "37", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "37", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "37", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "3088", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2056", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "9506", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "1544000/439", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "257000/73", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Manual", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard"}