The Campfire

Tom Mostyn

Born in Liverpool in 1864 and raised in Manchester, Tom Mostyn, the son of the artist Edwin Mostyn, studied at the Manchester Academy of Fine Arts. He had his first local exhibition in 1880, and was showing at the Royal Academy by the age of 29. 

Many of his earliest works were strongly influenced by the strong anti-“Victorian Materialist” sentiment of his teacher Sir Hubert Von Herkomer (whose school he entered in 1893).  In these works Mostyn depicted the poverty of the working classes in the style of the realists, an effective way of raising social consciousness.

Exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1891, around Britain and abroad in the Paris Salon and in Carnegie Institute,Pittsburgh. After the World War I moved to Devon and began painting enchanted garden scenes for which he would become best known. His work is represented in many public collections.Among his most important works from this period are The Torrent (R.A. 1895), The Dreamers (R.A. 1897) and The Doss-house (R.A. 1905).