Identity:

Augustus J. C. Hare was a painter and travel writer.

Life:

Hare, who specialised in landscape watercolour paintings, exhibited his work in 1902 at Leicester Gallery. His Walks in London (1878) contained a flattering reference to JW's Harmony in Blue and Gold: The Peacock Room (YMSM 178).

Following JW's bankruptcy in 1879, Hare recorded that he was included among a large group that visited JW's White House in Chelsea on 13 May 1879 in order to see a collection of his pictures. However, only one was on display, a satirical painting of F. R. Leyland, The Loves of the Lobsters (YMSM 209). He believed that JW, who looked 'most strange and uncanny' with his quiff of white hair 'waving on his forehead', sought to foil mindless admirers: 'People admire like sheep his pictures in the Grosvenor Gallery, following each other's lead because it is the fashion.' However, it is evident that JW also intended to spite his creditors.

Bibliography:

Pennell, Elizabeth Robins, and Joseph Pennell, The Life of James McNeill Whistler, 2 vols, London and Philadelphia, 1908; Johnson, J., and Anna Greutzner, Dictionary of British Artists 1880-1940, Woodbridge, 1980.