Joseph Edward

Joseph Edward Southall Notecard Folio

Born into a distinguished Quaker family, Joseph Edward Southall (English, 18611944) was educated at Friends schools and then trained as an architect with the firm Martin & Chamberlain while studying painting part-time at the Birmingham School of Art. At both of the latter institutions he was immersed in the philosophy of the Arts and Crafts movement, which inspired him to travel throughout Europe for a closer study of crafts and painting. In Italy Southall was captivated by the frescoes of the Renaissance painters and intrigued by an article in which John Ruskin extolled the virtues of tempera paintinga discipline that Southall pursued enthusiastically on his return to Birmingham. In 1901, with John Dickson Batten, William Holman Hunt, and Walter Crane, he cofounded the Society of Painters in Tempera, spurring a revival of tempera painting