George Frederic Watts

1817–1904

In Tate Britain

Walk Through British Art: 1840

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In Tate Britain

Prints and Drawings Rooms

3 artworks by George Frederic Watts

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Biography

George Frederic Watts, RA (London 23 February 1817 – 1 July 1904) was an English Victorian painter and sculptor associated with the Symbolist movement. He said "I paint ideas, not things." Watts became famous in his lifetime for his allegorical works, such as Hope and Love and Life. These paintings were intended to form part of an epic symbolic cycle called the "House of Life", in which the emotions and aspirations of life would all be represented in a universal symbolic language.

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Artworks

Left Right

George Frederic Watts and assistants Hope

1886

On display at Tate Britain part of Walk Through British Art

George Frederic Watts The Minotaur

1885

George Frederic Watts Love and Death

c.1885–7

On display at Tate Britain part of Walk Through British Art

George Frederic Watts Mammon

1884–5

George Frederic Watts Love and Life

c.1884–5

George Frederic Watts Time, Death and Judgement

1900

George Frederic Watts ‘For he had great possessions’

1894

George Frederic Watts ‘She shall be called woman’

c.1875–92

See all 44

Artist as subject

George Frederic Watts Self-Portrait

1864

Sir Charles Holroyd Sketch of G.F. Watts

1897

Anita Bartle, Grant Richards (London, UK) This is my Birthday

1902

View by appointment

Henry Scott Tuke Diary of Henry Scott Tuke

12 March 1899–31 December 1905

Film and audio

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Nicholas Tromans – Limnerlease and Watts Gallery

Nicholas Tromans discusses the challenges and opportunities faced by an ambitious small museum, the Watts Gallery, based on a single ...

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George Frederic Watts - The Eve Trilogy

Tate curator of 19th century British art, Alison Smith, talks about five George Frederic Watts works in the Tate Collection

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George Frederic Watts - Hope 1886

Curator's talk

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George Frederic Watts - The Court of Death 1870-1902

Tate curator of 19th century British art, Alison Smith, talks about five George Frederic Watts works in the Tate Collection.

Features

Left Right

Tate Etc

George Frederic Watts's The Minotaur

Ed Atkins

Tate Etc. at Tate Britain / Artists' Perspectives

George Frederic Watts' Satan painted in 1847

Tate Etc

G.F. Watts: symbolist and star-gazer

Simon Grant1

G.F. Watts (1817–1904) has been variously described as one of the ‘heroic failures of British art’ and ‘shallow ...

Tate Papers

Listening for the Sublime: Aural-Visual Improvisations in Nineteenth-Century Musical Art

Charlotte Purkis

Music’s capacity to expose the contradictions which emerged within late nineteenth-century understandings of the sublime is explored in relation ...

Augustus Leopold Egg, ‘Past and Present, No. 1’ 1858

Tate Papers

A Dramatic Reading of Augustus Leopold Egg’s Untitled Triptych

Annabel Rutherford

This article explores the significance of the theatrical and literary references found in the triptych Past and Present 1858 by ...

Turner’s ‘Chelsea’ palette, used at the end of his life

Tate Papers

The Materials Used by British Oil Painters in the Nineteenth Century

Joyce H. Townsend

This paper reviews existing literature on nineteenth-century British artists’ materials. Sources of information, such as colourmen’s archives, artists’ diaries ...