The English painter and illustrator Frederick Walker (1840-1875) became a student at the Royal Academy school in London at seventeen but acquired most of his training in drawing and painting through studying and copying in the British Museum and by attending life classes at Leigh's Art School. From 1858 he worked as an illustrator and produced engravings to appear in the new London illustrated magazines, including William Makepeace Thackeray’s Cornhill Magazine, founded in 1860. He felt constrained by the industry of book illustration and consequently concentrated his work on painting, both in watercolour and oil. He exhibited his first oil painting in 1863 at the Royal Academy, of which he later became an Associate (A.R.A.). In 1864 he was unanimously elected as a member of the prestigious Old Watercolour Society, where he regularly exhibited. Walker’s prolific artistic career was cut short in 1875 when, after suffering from ill health, he died at the young age of 35 in Perthshire.

Walker's illustrations are known for their acute observation and careful details, and several of them served as the basis for his paintings. 'The Cottage Door', dated 1860, is one of Fred Walker’s earliest watercolours and is a typical example of Victorian painting in the 1860s, depicting the social reality of everyday English life in animated genre scenes. The intense tonality he achieved in his works was appreciated by Vincent van Gogh who mentioned Fred Walker numerous times in his letters to his brother Theo and the artist Anton van Rappard: In an undated letter from ca. 1883-86 van Gogh wrote to Theo: “Just read an article in the Graphic on an exhibition of twenty-five drawings by Fred. Walker. Walker died some ten years ago, you know. Pinwell too – while I’m on this subject, I’m thinking of their work too, and how very clever they were. (…) restored nature over convention sentiment and impression over academic platitudes and dullness. How they were the finest tonists”.

Leggatt Bros (London), by 1920; W.E.Jones, Esq.; by descent to a Lady; purchased from her by Vicaro at Christie, Manson and Woods (London), 12 March 1928, no. 21; B. Taylor-Gregson; purchased from him by Thomas Agnew & Sons (London), 4 June 1963; purchased there by Reverend J. Gordon Walker, Dorset, 23 April 1964; Olga M Walker (d.1974); by descent to his daughter, Marie Josephine Gorton, 1975; by descent to her daughter, Diana Mallinson, 2008; Diana Mallinson and Hugh and Paul Gorton Gift, 2009

Life, Legend, Landscape - Victorian Drawings and Watercolours, The Courtauld Gallery, London, 17/02/2011-15/05/2011

The Courtauld Collects - 20 Years of Acquisitions, Somerset House & London & England, 17/06/2010-19/09/2010

Life, Legend, Landscape: Victorian Drawings & Watercolours, The Courtauld Gallery, 2011
no. 12
ill. on p. 71

Life, Legend, Landscape - Victorian Drawings and Watercolours, The Courtauld Gallery, 2011
cat. no. 12
ill. on p. 71

Marks, John George, Life and Letters of Frederick Walker, A.R.A., London and New York, Macmillian Co., 1896
p. 16

Inscription: F. WALKER. 1860.

Inscription: D.M 1814 [?]

Inscription: 3393 The Fight by F. Walker Tint 10 (Not Double mount) Simple pale wash lines 3/4" oak Framed 2 3/4" margins 102

Label: Thos. Agnew & Sons Ltd. No 24916 By Appointment to the Late King George V London 43 Old Bond Street Picadilly. W.