Edward Arthur Fellowes Prynne
Edward Arthur Fellowes Prynne (1854–1921) was a leading British late Pre-Raphaelite painter of portraits and subject pictures, chiefly sacred painting, as well as church decorations and stained glass designs. Family and Early life. Born in Plymouth on 14 October 1854, Prynne was the third son of Emily Fellowes (daughter of Admiral Sir Thomas Fellowes KCB DCL), and the Cornish Revd George Rundle Prynne, the notable tractarian and ritualist. His brother was the church architect George Fellowes Prynne. Prynne was educated at Eastman's Royal Naval Academy in Southsea, being originally intended for the navy. But  at the suggestion of Frederic Leighton, he decided to embark on an artistic career. After preliminary training in art schools in London, he travelled to Antwerp, where he studied with the Belgian painter Charles Verlat. Subsequent study was undertaken in Florence, Paris and Rome. Prynne married Emma Mary Joll in 1888, with whom he had two sons and three daughters: Beatrice Mary Fellowes Prynne (1893–1993), Dorothy Etheldreda Prynne (1894–1983), George Michael Fellowes Prynne (1896–1973), Stella Christine Marie Prynne (1898–1957) and John Rundle Fellowes Prynne (1903–1931). On moving to London in the 1880s, he lived at 8 Avonmore Road in Kensington  Olympia (later home of the author Gavin Maxwell). He subsequently lived for over 20 years at 1 Woodville Road in Ealing. Prynne and his family became part of the community of artists living in Ealing. He was a member of Ealing Art Group, and was present at their first meeting in 1911. Prynne and his family attended St Peter's Church, Ealing. Work. Prynne's early paintings show a clear debt to his teacher Charles Verlat. Soon after his return from the continent however, the artist fell under the influence of the Pre-Raphaelite school of painting, especially of Edward  Burne Jones, influencing the whole of his subsequent work. Prynne excelled across a range styes and subjects. He was a highly skilled traditional portrait artist whose works were commissioned by members of the Royal Family and politicians. He painted over 60 portraits, including a commission to paint a life-size portrait of the Duke of Edinburgh, as Admiral of the Fleet. By command of Queen Victoria, he attended Osborne House to show this portrait, which was later hung in the Royal Naval Barracks at Devonport. Prynne also painted often almost psychedelic mythological and religious pictures. Notable among these were ‘Cophetua 's Queen,’ ‘Orpheus and Eurydice,’ ‘Pan and Syrinx,’ and ‘ Silent Voices of the Studio.’ Religious Work. Prynne shared the ardent Anglo Catholic faith of his father and brother, George Fellowes Prynne. He is principally celebrated for his religious art, which was commissioned and purchased for churches across the county – particularly in Devon and Cornwall. In many instances, Prynne's painted altar and reredos panels and stained-glass grace the churches designed and restored by his brother. One of Prynne's most striking and original works is his altar piece, 'Benedicite Domino Laudate Et Superexaltate Eum in Saecula' which includes five  painted panels illustrating separate lines from the canticle of creation. Here Prynne's mythological and religious worlds combine, notably in the panel depicting a sub-marine angel garbed in scales and delicate fish fin wings. The piece was shown in the Royal Society of British Artists 114th Exhibition in 1896; a reviewer commenting, 'Mr. E. A. Fellowes Prynne shows an altar-piece, " Benedicite," rich in colour and the artist's mannerisms. Other artists highlighted for praise by the otherwise unimpressed reviewer included W. Graham Robertson, William Luker, and Tom Robertson. Prynne's painting ‘Magnificat,’ appeared in 1894 in the New  Gallery on Regents Street, London. Other exhibits included 'Love among the Ruins' by Edward Burne Jones, as well as work by work by Lawrence Alma-Tadema, George Frederic Watts, Leonard Leslie Brooke, Charles Edward Hallé, Edward Matthew Hale, Walter Crane, William Laidlay, John Roddam Spencer Stanhope, George Hitchcock, Frank William Brangwyn, Andrew Brown Donaldson, George Henry Boughton, Arthur Lemon, George Howard, 9th Earl of Carlisle, Edward Poynter, William Llewellyn (painter), William Logsdail, Philip Norman (artist), Clara Montalba, William Wontner and George Frampton. 'Magnificat' also appeared at the L'Exposition Internationale du Bruxelles in 1897, where it was thought by a reviewer  to be ‘an exquisite conception’. Prynne's ‘Ecce Ancilla Domini,’ painted during the same year, was praised for its beauty, delicacy and composition. It was displayed at the Royal Society of British Artists exhibition in 1895. Both of these pictures were presented by Mr. C. Lang Huggins to St Mark's Church, Hadlow Down, Sussex. ‘The Desire of all Nations', a depiction if the nativity is amongst Prynne's chief works. It was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1895, the reviewer in The Antiquary magazine noting that the painting would be suitable for display in a church setting. Such  was the picture's destiny, for it was purchased by the Rev. Harry Wilson for St. Augustine's Church, Stepney, together with a set of Prynne's Stations of the Cross. The copyrights of both the ‘Magnificat’ and 'The Desire of all Nations' were purchased by the Berlin Photographic Company in 1896, and subsequently reproduced in photogravure and widely circulated in all parts of the world. The paintings were included in a Berlin Photographic Company 'Catalogue of Select Publications' in 1906. ‘Christ before Pilate,’ ‘Christ's Entry into Jerusalem,’ and ‘St. Joseph's Dream,’ are also amongst his most accomplished  pictures. The first, painted in 1898, was exhibited in Paris, Berlin, and Dusseldorf International Exhibition of Religious Art, and was later donated to St Peter's Church, Ealing by Prynne's widow. A second complete set of fourteen Stations of the Cross was painted for the Rev. H. Eardley-Wilmot for St Mary's Church, Ilford, together with three altar panels for the Church. The last altar panels painted by Prynne were for St Mary's Church, East Grinstead, representing Jesus' entombment, with adoring angels on each side. His picture, ‘ Lux Mundi,’ was the motif of a large sculptured panel  in the reredos above. In the same year that'Christ Before Pilot' appeared, Prynne painted Prynne, 'Rex Judaeourum', another religious painting, which was listed for sale in 1908 for £21 (over £1500 today). Prynne's most ambitious scheme, and perhaps his masterpiece, was a mural painted on the walls if St. Peter's Church, Plymouth – a church designed by George Fellowes Prynne – in memory of their Father. Painted above the chancel arch, it depicted Christ Christ triumphant, surrounded by hundreds of angels and saints. Such was the size of the painting, approximately 650 square feet, that it was executed  in separate sections, pieced together. On the side walls immediately above the nave arcade were scenes from the life of St Peter, and other pictures adorn the walls of the church. 'The colouring of the mural was original and daring – Prynne used wax to dull surface of fresco without sacrificing depth of colour. The cerulean ground at the top of the composition, and the ringed gold of the halos, recalled the joyously ecstatic art of Fra Angelico, and formed a rich harmony with the multi-hued draperies, giving also the keynote to the layers of violet cloud that separated the  rows of figures.' Tragically, the paintings were destroyed when the church was damaged during World War Two. Another important collaboration between Prynne and George Fellowes Prynne was at St Peter's Church, Staines, where the artist provided vibrant and complex window designs of remarkable quality and beauty for his brother's new church. The windows, created from the 1890s onwards are considered to constitute one of Prynne's finest legacies. In 1903, his design for the Staines Nativity Window was displayed at the Royal Academy 135th Exhibition. Prynne often worked as an outside glass designer for various architects and designers . This included John J Jennings (as at St Peter's Church Staines), whose glassworks were on Clapham Road in South London, and Percy Bacon Brothers. Other notable examples of collaboration between the Prynne brothers include altar panels at Holy Trinity, Roehampton, and St Mary, East Grinstead, and a reredos at St Mary the Virgin Church, Hayes. Prynne also almost certainly created the wooden painted altar panels at St Saviour's Church, Ealing, near to which the two brothers both lived, (destroyed when the church was bombed in 1940). In addition to the Royal Academy, Prynne exhibited pictures at Royal Society  of British Artists, New Gallery, Grosvenor Gallery, and at important galleries in Liverpool, Glasgow, Birmingham and Brussels. He was elected as a member of the Royal Society of British Artists in October 1895. Final Years and Death. Representing the pinnacle of his painted devotional work, in 1918, the Anglican religious order, the <nowiki>Cowely Fathers</nowiki>, approached Prynne to create a set of 14 painted Stations of the Cross for St John the Evangelist Church, Oxford. Prynne thought that the Church "afforded a unique opportunity by reason of the splendid wall-space’’ and regarded the commission as “a  very great pleasure and high privilege," and over the next few years he and the Fathers wrangled over the details. The striking – although not unproblematic – set of images was finally installed in the Church in 1921. The set seems to have been based on Prynne's earlier picture, ‘Christ Before Pilot’, painted in 1898. The last four last ‘Stations’ were the final paintings on which Prynne worked – the last painting he touched was the ‘ Entombment of Christ.’ In 29 January 1921, Prynne's eldest daughter, Beatrice, was married to Yule Crosby (1889–1977) at St Peter's Church, Ealing. Crosby was  a South African mining engineer who met the Prynne family whilst he was working as a billeting officer in London during the War. The newly married couple emigrated to South Africa, and Edward was never to see his daughter again, nor meet his grandchild (also called Beatrice), born the following year. Just before his death, Prynne was included in an Illustrated Who's who of Notable Londoners – one of just 22 artists, including Edwin Lutyens and Philip de László. Other Londoners featured, included Winston Churchill and David Lloyd George. Prynne died on 28 December 1921. He was buried in the  churchyard of St Mary the Virgin Church, Hayes (where his brother, George Fellowes Prynne was also later buried). An obituary in 'The Builder' magazine opined that: On 29 September 1922, Prynne's widow, Emma Prynne, presented Her late husband's famous 1898 painting of 'Christ Before Pilot' to St Peter's Church, Ealing in his memory. (In 1947, one of Prynne's daughters additional donated a set of photographic reproductions of his Stations of the Cross for the Cowley Fathers – now lost). In 1934, Beatrice, Yule and their three children visited Emma Fellowes Prynne, who still lived at number 1  Woodville Road in Ealing. Edward Arthur Fellowes Prynne's studio in the garden remained partly furnished as before his death 23 years before. Emma Fellowes Prynne's daughter Beatrice later emigrated from South Africa to New Zealand. Sale Prices. In 1985 Prynne's 'Portrait of Mark Tucker' sold for £418 at auction. The same year 'a religious roundel' was sold for £4,000. In 1998, Prynne's painting, 'Enthroned', sold for $17,000.