Biographies

Crawhall, Joseph (1861-1913)

Born in Morpeth and brought up in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Crawhall was the third artist of that name in the family. His father specialized in woodcuts, however. The third Joseph Campbell studied at King’s College School in London, where he met E. A. Walton. Crawhall, Walton and James Guthrie painted at Roseneath (Glasgow) in 1879. Together they became part of the group of artists known as the “Glasgow Boys.” The Carlton Gallery in Edinburgh said this about him: “A great perfectionist, he once discarded a picture, retrieved from the waste bin by a friend, which later won a gold medal in Munich. This perfectionism, coupled with his early death, account for the small volume of surviving work.” The work that we have found ranges from very finished paintings to quick, elegant sketches. In for June 9, 1910, a painting of his called “The Cock” was singled out for praise (The New Age NA 7.6:136). It probably resembles one of the two bird paintings by Crawhall in our archive.