Home > Artists > Gerald Brockhurst

Gerald Brockhurst RA RE RP (1890-1978)


Gerald Leslie Brockhurst, RA RE RP SGA (1890-1978)

Gerald Brockhurst was a precociously gifted painter, draughtsman and printmaker, who is best known for his portraits of women, including his two wives and a number of celebrities. The work of Italian Renaissance artists informed his developing style, which at its most mature was intensely, even unnervingly, realistic.

Gerald Brockhurst was born at 106 Summer Road, Edgbaston, Birmingham, on 31 October 1890, the fourth son of the coal dealer, Arthur Brockhurst, and his wife, Amelia (née Ward). Displaying a prodigious talent for drawing at an early age, he was only 12 when he began to study at Birmingham School of Art. His fellow students included Henry Rushbury, who would become a close friend.

In 1907, at the age of 16, Brockhurst won a scholarship to the Royal Academy Schools, in London. There, he received a number of awards, including the Landseer Scholarship, the Armitage Medal, the British Institute Studentship and, in 1913, a gold medal and a travelling scholarship worth £200.