Charles Napier Hemy
1841-1917
British
(Newcastle upon Tyne, England; Cornwall, England)
Charles Napier Hemy is renowned for grand, often Royal Academy oil paintings of his favourite maritime subjects but also for watercolor and egg tempera paintings which he could complete in his floating studios and suited his desire to paint from nature and the ever-changing seas. Born into a musical family in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne in 1841, Charles was the eldest of three brothers. Bernard Benedict Hemy (1845–1913) and Thomas Madawaska Hemy (1852–1937) were also painters but did enjoy their elder brother’s success.
In 1850, in financial difficulties, the Hemys emigrated to Australia aboard a ship named the Madawaska, travelling in steerage. For the young Charles, the epic journey was the start of a love affair with ships and the sea: 'It was imprinted on my mind, and I never forgot it'.
In Australia Charles’s father tried his hand at gold prospecting, but the move was not in the end a success, and the Hemys booked transit back to England in 1852. Upon their return to England, Charles enrolled in Newcastle's Government School of Design. Throughout his life Hemy was also a deeply spiritual man and devout Catholic. From 1860 to 1862 he lived as a Dominican Priest in monasteries in Lyon and Carpentras, but ultimately did not find his vocation within the brotherhood. In 1863 the aspiring young artist went to study with the Belgian painter Baron Henri Leys, attending the Antwerp Academy. In 1869 Hemy returned to London where he remained until 1880, working from a gallery studio in Fulham close to the home of Edward Burne-Jones and William Morris’s Workshop, where he also worked for a period.
