Walter John Bayes was an English painter and illustrator who was a founder member of both the Camden Town Group and the London Group and a renowned art teacher and critic.
16 Facts About Walter Bayes
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Walter Bayes then attended University College School before beginning work in a solicitor's office.
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Walter Bayes did not enjoy the work and in 1886 began to take evening classes at the City and Guilds of London Institute in Finsbury before studying full-time at the Westminster School of Art.
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Later during the 1890s Walter Bayes began teaching, first at the City and Guilds of London Institute, later at Bolt Court School of Art and then at the Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts.
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Walter Bayes started writing on art theory and criticism with regular columns in Outlook, Saturday Review and Weekend Review.
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Walter Bayes continued to paint, mostly landscapes in oil and watercolour but developed an interest in theatre design.
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The first work by Walter Bayes purchased by a major British gallery was Top o' the Tide which the Walker Art Gallery acquired in 1900.
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In 1906 Walter Bayes became the art critic of Athenaeum in place of Roger Fry.
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In 1908 Walter Bayes was one of the initial eighty artists to join the Allied Artists' Association formed by Frank Rutter.
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Walter Bayes exhibited work at all three Camden Town Group exhibitions and, in 1913, became a founding member of the London Group.
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Walter Bayes spent some time in Devon in 1918 preparing for what became Landing Survivors from a Torpedoed Ship.
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In 1918 Walter Bayes was appointed Principal of the Westminster School of Art, a post he was to hold until 1934.
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From 1927 to 1939 Walter Bayes was a lecturer in Perspective at the Royal Academy Schools and when he left Westminster in 1934 he continued teaching as a visiting lecturer at Reading University until 1937.
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Early in World War II Walter Bayes submitted works to the War Artists' Advisory Committee for purchase but was refused.
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Walter Bayes produced 29 watercolours of London for the project, 23 of Essex and 20 of other areas, including seven drawings of Oxford.
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In 1944 Walter Bayes became Director of Painting at Lancaster School of Arts and Crafts, finally retiring in 1949, aged eighty.