Edmund John Niemann

Edmund John Niemann (1813-1876) was a prolific and highly successful British landscape artist working mostly in oils. A number of his works are held in the Wolverhampton Art Gallery.

Niemann was born in Islington, London in 1813. His father, John Diedrich Niemann, was a native of Minden, Westphalia and worked in the City of London at Lloyd's. As a young man, Edmund was employed as a clerk at Lloyd's, but he decided to devote himself to art and in 1839 settled in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, mostly painting out of doors. Though he especially enjoyed painting the scenery of the Thames and of the River Swale, near Richmond in Yorkshire, yet all areas of the British Isles are covered in the corpus of his work.

Between 1844 and 1872, he exhibited paintings at a wide range of prestigious galleries including the Royal Academy, the British Institution, the Society of British Artists in Suffolk St, the Royal Scottish Academy, the Royal Institute, the Glasgow Institute, and the Paris Salon. He returned to London in 1848 for the foundation of the 'Free Exhibition' held in the Chinese Gallery at Hyde Park Corner. In 1850 this became the Portland Gallery, Regent Street, and he became its Secretary.

His paintings are characterised by great versatility, natural colours, and visual realism, often in the romantic artistic style of J.M.W. Turner, Corot and Caspar David Friedrich. His son, Edward H. Niemann, was also a successful painter imitating his father's style. Their work is often confused. He died at Brixton Hill, Surrey of apoplexy on 15 April 1876. [Oxford, "Dictionary of National Biography," (condensed edition) Oxford University Press, 1975, vol. 2, p.503]

Works

(dates given where known)
*Buckingham Street, Strand, 1854
*Fishing by the Dam, 1855
*Fishing Near Godalming, 1858
*View of Richmond, Yorkshire, 1859
*A charming view of Stapleton, 1860
*Landscape near Rochester, 1860
*Landcsape with a view of Lincoln, 1861
*Town and Vale of Ffestiniog, 1864
*Ffestiniog, 1870
*Windsor Castle from Cooper's Hill, Runnymede, 1876
*Pynford, Near Surrey
*An Extensive River Landscape
*On the Eden, near Carlisle
*Bucks Damaged by Flood, Mapledurham, Berks, Morning
*The Force, Richmond, Yorkshire
*A View in Yorkshire
*Goodrich Castle and the Wye
*The Old Watermill
*Mediterranean Harbour Scene
*Ludlow, Shropshire
*A View of Nottingham
*The Elbor Rocks Looking Towards Glastonbury
*View of Whitby
*On the East Coast
*Cranbrook, Kent
*Richmond Upon Thames
*Mountainous Landscape
*The Golden Age
*Farmhands on Horseback and Cattle at Water's Edge

References