Sir George Clausen, RA, RSW, RWS, HonRBA, RI, ROI, NEAC
Sir George Clausen was a British artist who was a founding member of the New English Art Club in 1886. Clausen was born in London in 1852, he studied at the Académie Julian in 1883. He was an admirer of the naturalism of the painter Jules Bastien-Lepage, with whom he shared the view that light is the real subject of landscape art. Subsequently, Clausen became one of the foremost modern painters of landscape and of peasant life, influenced to a certain extent by the Impressionists and plein-air painting. Most of all, he was particularly interested in effects of light, often showing figures set against the sun, but he always retained a sense of solidity of form. His pictures excel in rendering the appearance of things under flecking outdoor sunlight, or in the shady shelter of a barn or stable.