Owen Baxter Morgan (1873-1920)
Owen Baxter Morgan was a painter, in oil and watercolour, of gently impressionistic poetic pastoral landscapes, including sunsets and nocturnes. Sometimes they incorporated figures of farmworkers, involved in such activities as guiding animals and making hay.
Owen Baxter Morgan was born at Grove Lodge, Gloucester Grove (now Clareville Grove), Kensington, London, on 9 April 1873. He was the fifth of the six children of the artist, Alfred Morgan, and his wife, Jessey (née Roe), who was sister-in-law of the painter, Henry B Hagreen. His elder brother, Alfred Kedington (1868-1928), and younger sister, Ethel Mahala (1875-1926), also became artists. Their father is best remembered for the painting, An Omnibus to Piccadilly Circus: Mr Gladstone Travelling with Ordinary Passengers (1885).
This includes portraits of young Owen, his parents and his elder sister, Jessie.
By 1891, the Morgan family had moved to 12 Albert Road (now Albert Bridge Road), Battersea. Two years later, in January 1893, Owen began to study at the Royal Academy Schools, and during his time there twice won a silver medal for his painting of a head from life (1895 & 1897). However, following completion of his studies in January 1898, he soon began to specialise in landscapes, as exemplified by the two works that he exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1898 and 1901, and others shown at the Royal Society 177 of British Artists. By 1901, he had moved to 30 Palewell Park, East Sheen, with his parents and two of his siblings. It would be his home for the remainder of his life. He died on 29 August 1920.
