Percy Bigland

{{Short description|English portrait painter}} {{Use dmy dates|date=September 2019}} {{Use British English|date=September 2023}} {{Infobox artist | honorific_prefix = | name = Percy Bigland | honorific_suffix = | image = | image_size = | alt = | caption = | native_name = | native_name_lang = | birth_name =  | birth_date = {{Birth year|1858}} | birth_place = Birkenhead | baptised =  | death_date = {{Death year|1926}} (aged 68) | death_place = Jordans, Buckinghamshire | resting_place = | resting_place_coordinates =  | nationality =  | education = Sidcot School | alma_mater = | known_for = Portrait, genre and landscape painting | notable_works = ''W. E. Gladstone (1809–1898)'' | style = | movement = | spouse = | partner = | children = | parents = | father = Edwin Bigland | mother = | relatives = Alfred Bigland (brother) | family = | awards =  | signature = | signature_type = | signature_size = | signature_alt = | elected = | patrons = | memorials = | website =  | module = }} '''Percy Bigland''' (1858–1926) was an English portrait painter.

==Life== [[File:W. E. Gladstone (1809–1898), Percy Bigland 1890.jpg|thumb|''W. E. Gladstone (1809–1898)'', Percy Bigland, 1890, hung in the Walker Art Gallery]] Bigland was the son of Edwin Bigland, of Birkenhead in 1856. He was educated like his brother at the Sidcot School as his family were Quakers. Bigland studied art in Munich in Germany for seven years before returning to England where he lived in London, Liverpool, Beaconsfield and Buckinghamshire. He was a regular exhibitor until 1925 at institutions in London and the provinces.<ref name="gac"/>

Bigland painted his elder brother, Alfred Bigland who was an M.P. This portrait is in the Williamson Art Gallery in Birkenhead.<ref>[https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/alfred-bigland-18551936-mp-68383 Portrait of Alfred Bigland]</ref><ref>[http://www.whistler.arts.gla.ac.uk/correspondence/people/biog/?bid=Bigl_P&initial=B Biographical note on Percy Bigland, Alfred's brother, in notes to ''The correspondence of James McNeill Whistler'']</ref> His most notable subject was the Prime Minister Gladstone, but he also went to America three times to include the department store owner Isaac H Clothier,<ref name="gac"/> Swarthmore College dean Elizabeth Powell Bond<ref>[http://www.swarthmore.edu/library/friends/ead/5014ebon.xml Elizabeth Powell Bond], Friends Historical Library at Swarthmore College, retrieved May 3, 2016</ref> and landowner and philanthropist William Poole Bancroft in his list of sitters.<ref>[http://findingaids.hagley.org/xtf/view?docId=ead/2424.xml Woodlawn Trustees, Inc. records], Hagley Museum, Delaware</ref>

In 1891 he was elected to the Royal Society of Portrait Painters in 1891 and in 1893 he painted Elizabeth Hanbury who was then 100 years old.<ref>{{cite DNB |wstitle=Hanbury, Elizabeth |supplement=2}}</ref>

Bigland died aged 68<ref name="gac">[http://www.gac.culture.gov.uk/work.aspx?obj=35277 Percy Bigland], Government Art Collection, retrieved 10 January 2015</ref> in 1926.<ref>[https://www.artsignaturedictionary.com/artist/percy.bigland Percy Bigland], ArtSignatureDictionary, retrieved 10 January 2015</ref>

==Legacy== Bigland has twenty paintings in British national collections.<ref>{{Art UK bio}}</ref>

==References== {{Commons category|Percy Bigland}} {{Reflist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bigland, Percy}} Category:English Quakers Category:Artists from Birkenhead Category:1856 births Category:1926 deaths Category:19th-century English male artists Category:20th-century English male artists Category:People educated at Sidcot School