Background
Peel was born in London, Ontario, Canada, on November 7, 1860. He was the son of John Robert Peel, a marble-cutter and drawing teacher, and Amelia Margaret Hall. Paul Peel had seven siblings.
1882
Self-Portrait of 1882.
118-128 N Broad St, Philadelphia, PA 19102, USA
Peel was enrolled into the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, in Philadelphia, where he studied with Christian Schussele and the more progressive Thomas Eakins from October 1877 till April 1882.
118-128 N Broad St, Philadelphia, PA 19102, USA
In 1878 Paul Peel was appointed assistant demonstrator of anatomy at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.
Paul Peel was elected a member of the Ontario Society of Artists in 1880.
On April 26, 1890, Peel received his full membership in the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts.
Peel was born in London, Ontario, Canada, on November 7, 1860. He was the son of John Robert Peel, a marble-cutter and drawing teacher, and Amelia Margaret Hall. Paul Peel had seven siblings.
In 1875 Paul Peel became a disciple of William Lees Judson, an English-born landscape and portrait painter, who instructed him in the rudiments of the predominant style of the day, called Academic Art, and encouraged Peel to paint outdoors.
Peel was enrolled into the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, in Philadelphia, where he studied with Christian Schussele and the more progressive Thomas Eakins since October 1877. His training involved not only drawing from engravings, plaster casts, and the live model, but also consisted of the study of still-life, portraiture, perspective, and anatomy.
Thomas Eakins inspired the young artist to explore the visual world intensely and to reproduce it precisely using a new, direct method of painting which involved "drawing" immediately with the brush and coloured pigments. By April 1880 Peel completed his education.
In April 1882 he began to study under the supervision of Jean-Léon Gérôme, a leading French painter and sculptor in the style now known as academicism, in his studio located in the École Nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, although contrary to tradition Peel was never officially enrolled at the École.
Since 1889 Peel became a student of Académie Julian (now part of ESAG Penninghen). There he studied under Henri Doucet, Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant, and Jules Lefebvre.
Peel exhibited his first artwork at the London Western Fair in September 1876. The following year he displayed his works at Hood’s Art Gallery in April showing five paintings including A Canadian Winter Scene. In July he travelled and sketched on the Thames River with William Lees Judson.
In 1878 he was appointed assistant demonstrator of anatomy at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. The same year Peel sent several of his works to the first Art Loan exhibition at the new Mechanics Institute in London, Ontario. In the year 1879, Paul Peel exhibited original wax model at 50th Annual Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts exhibition.
Paul Peel was a participant of the 51st Annual Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts exhibition and displayed his artworks at Chester’s Art Gallery in London, both exhibits were organized in 1880. Around this period of time, artist’s local reputation started to grow, although his paintings to this point, mainly landscapes and genre scenes, remained pompous and unresolved. He departed for Europe in October 1880, spent several months in London, England.
The following years, Peel spent much time in Paris, attracted by its opportunities for exhibiting. In 1881 he joined American artists colony at Pont Aven, France. He sent canvases on Breton themes to his father, who included them in the second annual exhibition of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts, held in Halifax, and the Industrial Exhibition, Toronto.
Peel settled in Paris near the bohemian quarter of Montparnasse in the fall of 1881. There he began working on the first of his many large-scale genre paintings, The spinner. It marked a significant stage in the artist’s development. In 1882 he exhibited for the first time at the Ontario Society of Artists and the Provincial Exhibition at Kingston, Ontario. Paul Peel’s large painting La première notion on the theme of mother and child was accepted by the 1883 Salon of the Société des Artistes Français. It was a remarkable achievement for a 22-year-old artist.
Paul Peel spent the summer and fall of 1883 in London, Ontario, where he executed several portraits and landscapes including the accomplished Covent Garden Market. Later on, he exhibited at the Art Association of Montréal Spring Salon and the Royal Canadian Academy-Ontario Society of Artists shows, the Industrial Exhibition and the Western Fair. On 13 December he left for Paris and spent the following summer in Pont-Aven, painting there. The same year he left Canada to return to France in December.
After his trip to London, England, in May 1886 to view the Colonial and Indian Exhibition, where Paul Peel had seven works displayed, he returned to Paris. He held exhibitions at the Royal Canadian Academy and the Danish Royal Academy. Peel exhibited a pastel in each of the Paris Salons of 1887 and 1888. George Agnew Reid, a well-known Canadian genre painter, and his wife, Mary Heister Reid, an American-born Canadian painter and teacher, arrived at Paris and joined Peel at Constant’s atelier.
Peel’s artworks created between 1888 and 1889 demonstrated an assurance and sophistication not previously evident, especially in his painting of a new subject, the nude. His entries in the Salon of 1889, The Venetian bather and The modest model, were attractively conceived and competently executed, especially in the modelling of the human form.
Paintings by Peel were also included in Canadian exhibitions held in 1889: the Royal Canadian Academy (Ottawa), the Art Association of Montreal, the Ontario Society of Artists(Toronto), and the Industrial Exhibition. In July 1890 Paul Peel made a trip home to see his dying mother. He produced several oil sketches around southern Ontario and at Quebec in a light-filled Impressionist mode and held an exhibition of 32 of his artworks at London’s Tecumseh House Hotel towards the end of September. Later he organized and sold 57 paintings by auction at Oliver, Coate & Company, Toronto. In November he moved to France.
The beginning of the 1890s witnessed a further consolidation of Peel’s art and reputation. He spent the summers with his family in Denmark and continued to display his artworks at the Salon (La jeunesse in 1891 and Les jumelles in 1892) as well as in Toronto.
Nap Time
(Also known as Young Girl With Terrier.)
The Beach in Normandy
(Also known as Good News.)
A Venetian Bather
The Bubble Boy
Adoration
Lunchtime
Portrait of Madam Verdier
Portrait of Gloria Roberts
Japanese Dolls and Fan
The Discovery of Moses
Mother’s Help
Before The Bath
The Young Gleaner
Devotion
Judith
Orchestra Chairs
The Little Shepherdess
The Modest Model
After the Bath
The Spinner
Mother and Child
Portrait of a girl
Self-portrait
Mothers help
Toll If You Please
Bringing home the flock
The Young Botanist
Bedtime
Robert Andre Peel
The Reaper’s Joy
Lady in the Garden
Waiting for the Bath
Landscape
The Young Biologist
Feeding birds in the park
Mother Love
The Rest
Getting ready for the hunt
Pumpkin Patch
The Painter
Paul Peel was elected a member of the Ontario Society of Artists in 1880. On April 26, 1890, he received his full membership in the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts.
In 1882 Peel got married to Isaure Verdier. Together they parented two children: a son, Robert Andre, born in 1886, and a daughter, Emilie Marguerite, born in 1888.