Copley Fielding was born in Sowerby, near Halifax, Yorkshire, on 22 November 1787. He was the third, and best known, of the five artist sons of Nathan Theodore Fielding, a Yorkshire portrait and landscape painter. His full name suggests his father’s ambitions for him, as it combines those of Anthony Van Dyck and the history painter, John Singleton Copley RA (though Copley was also a hamlet neighbouring Sowerby).
In 1788, the Fielding family moved to Acton, Middlesex (now in London). Copley attended a local school and, like his brother Frederick, worked as ‘an engrossing clerk in the enrolment office of the court of chancery’ (Mallalieu, 2004, page 498). After periods in Durham and London, the Fieldings settled in the Lake District in around 1804, first at a cottage in Ambleside and later in Keswick.
Given his first lessons in art by his father, Copley was soon working in a very similar style, though he was sent out each morning to draw from nature.
In 1807, he accompanied his father to Liverpool, in order to sell his drawings, and while there began to give drawing lessons. Father and son toured north Wales together in the following year.
In 1809, Copley Fielding settled in London, and lodged at Wells Street, in the artistic quarter north of Oxford Street. He took advice and lessons from John Varley, who may have suggested that he look at the work of Thomas Girtin, which he could have seen at Dr Monro’s informal academy. His election as an associate of the Society of Painters in Water Colours in January 1810 indicates the speed of his development.
During the summer, Fielding toured the Borders (visiting his brothers Theodore, in Penrith, and Frederick, in Carlisle), while, in the following year, he revisited Liverpool and north Wales. Further sketching tours in Britain followed through the decade. Though exhibiting eleven oils at the Royal Academy of Arts (1811-42), Fielding strengthened his allegiance to watercolour in becoming a member of the Society of Painters in Water Colours in 1811, its Treasurer in 1813 and its Secretary in 1815. Hugely prolific, he would average over forty exhibits a year there for forty-three years, a total of 1,748 works.
In 1813, Fielding married Susannah Gisborne, the sister of John Varley’s wife, and two years later they rented Capo di Monte, a house in Judges Walk, Hampstead (previously occupied by Sarah Siddons, the great tragedienne). In 1817, he also bought a house at 26 Newman Street, north of Oxford Street, ‘which was to be the London base of the family business for the next thirty years’ (Mallalieu, op cit, page 499) and, particularly, his highly successful practice as a drawing master. His pupils would include William Leighton Leitch, William Andrews Nesfield and John Ruskin, the last a lifelong admirer.
Yet, despite this activity, the ill health of both his wife and elder daughter necessitated a home on the coast, and the family settled at Sandgate, Kent, in 1817. From this time, Fielding not only painted many views of the southern counties, but also many seascapes, especially through the 1820s. At the close of that decade, the family moved to Brighton, living first at 41 Regency Square and, by 1840, at 2 Lansdowne Place. Views of the South Downs then became common to Fielding’s repertoire.
Remaining popular and successful throughout his career, Fielding was elected Deputy President of the Society of Painters in Water Colours in 1823, and President in 1831. In
1824, he was awarded a gold medal at the Paris Salon, in the same year as Richard Parkes Bonington and John Constable, although he was the only Fielding brother never to visit
France or, indeed travel abroad. His foreign views, such as Benares, were developed from the sketches of other artists.
Having made a final move, to 5 Park Crescent, Worthing, in 1847, Copley Fielding died there on 3 March 1855.
His work is represented in numerous public collections, including the British Museum, Tate, the V&A and The Wallace Collection; Brighton & Hove Museums, The Fitzwilliam Museum (Cambridge), Manchester Art Gallery, Southampton Art Gallery and Tyne & Wear Museums; and the Art Gallery of New South Wales (Sydney).
Further reading:
Solomon Charles Kaines-Smith, ‘Anthony Vandyke Copley Fielding’, Old Water-Colour Society’s Club, vol 3, 1925, pages 8-30;
Huon Mallalieu, ‘Fielding (Anthony Vandyke) Copley (1787-1855)’, H C G Matthew and Brian Harrison (eds), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004, vol 19, pages 498-499;
Terence Mullaly, ‘Copley Fielding, The Sussex County Magazine, vol 26, 1952, pages 574-578;
Marcia Pointon, ‘Fielding (3) (Anthony Van Dyck) Copley Fielding (b Sowerby Bridge, W Yorks, 1787; d Worthing, W Sussex, March 2, 1855)’, Jane Turner (ed), The Dictionary of Art, London: Macmillan, 1996, vol 11, page 60
