BENJAMIN SIGMUND (1854-1904)

Baroness De Rothschild Collection - France

Benjamin David Sigmund was a landscape and genre painter born at St Luke’s, Middlesex in 1857. He was a painter who always worked outdoors and in watercolour. He initially lived in London and then Maidenhead from where he toured the country, painting as far apart as Devon, Cornwall, Wales and Berkshire, as well as his native county of Buckinghamshire. By 1901, he had moved to Wexham Road, East Burnham near Slough with his wife Lily and daughter Gwendoline. He exhibited 31 works at the Royal Academy from 1880-1903. He also exhibited 34 works at the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolour and 25 works at the Royal Society of British Artists. Sigmund painted in a tightly controlled manner using rich colours as a focal point. He had a great feeling for the quality of light peculiar to the English countryside, something which could only have been achieved by an artist painting directly from nature. He also produced two illustrated books ‘By the Sea Shore’ and ‘Reeds and Grasses’, both published in 1888.