1819 -1909 · Victorian London and modern crowd panorama

Crowded beaches, new train stations and social shows made William Powell Frith the great panoramic chronicler of Victorian society.

William Powell Frith was born in Aldfield, Yorkshire, in 1819 and died in London in 1909. Encouraged by his father, an art-loving innkeeper, he studied at Sass's Academy and then entered the Royal Academy Schools in 1837. He soon joined The Clique, a group of young painters hostile to abstract academicism and favorable to accessible narrative art. His first successes came from subjects borrowed from Shakespeare, Goldsmith, Dickens and Walter Scott. Elected to the Royal Academy in 1853, Frith then broadened his ambition: instead of illustrating an ancient episode, he made contemporary life a painting of history. Ramsgate Sands, exhibited in 1853, Frith then broadened his ambition: instead of illustrating an ancient episode, he made contemporary life a painting of history. Ramsgate Sands, exhibited in 1853, Frith then broadened his ambition: instead of illustrating an ancient episode, he made contemporary life a painting of history. Ramsgate Sands, exhibited in 1854, brought together bourgeois families on the beach. children, sellers, elegant and curious. The crowd is not an anonymous background; each group has its plot, its rhythm and its place in the social hierarchy. Derby Day, completed in 1858, applies the same method to the Epsom racetrack. Aristocrats, players, acrobats, crooks and travelers compose a theater where collective enthusiasm reveals the inequalities and temptations of the metropolis. The train station, presented in 1862, chooses the Paddington terminal, a symbol of speed and mobility. The train station, presented in 1862, chooses the Paddington terminal, a symbol of speed and mobility. The train station, presented in 1862, chooses the Paddington terminal, a symbol of speed and mobility. Departures, farewells and secret arrests condense the dramas of a society transformed by rail. Later, Opening at the Royal Academy brought together celebrities, aesthetes, artists and visitors around the art show itself. Frith's large compositions require numerous drawings, portraits, separate models and revisions. Their meticulous finish allows the viewer to mentally circulate among dozens of characters. Extremely popular, reproduced by engraving and commented on in the press, they make painting an equivalent of the Victorian novel. Frith also paints portraits, literary scenes and autobiographical cycles. His work remains a major visual archive of the pleasures, tensions and new public spaces of the British 19th century. The "William Powell Frith" selection notably compares Derby Day and The station. His reading favors drawing.

Frith gives the crowd the readability of a novel: each group tells a story and all compose the portrait of an era.