George Clausen was born in London on 18 April 1852. He was the son of a Danish interior decorator. At 14 George was apprenticed to the drawing office of Messrs Trollope, a London firm of decorators. While working there, he attended evening classes at the National Art Training School, South Kensington, but his first important artistic contact came when he was sent to decorate a door at the home of the history painter Edwin Long, RA. He became Long’s researcher, and was given assistance in his own development as an artist. Taking his advice, Clausen visited Belgium and Holland (1875-76). At the Antwerp Royal Academy, he studied studying briefly under Professor Joseph Van Lerius (1823-76) and began to sketch in the fishing villages along the Dutch coast; the product of these studies, High Mass at a Fishing Village on the Zuyder Zee (1876; Nottingham, Castle Museum) was exhibited at the RA and was well received. Influenced by the Hague School and French contemporaries, he began to take an interest in plein-air painting. Failing to obtain entry to Gérome’s Atelier in Paris, he returned to London, set up his studio and established himself as a painter, in both watercolour and oils. In 1876 Clausen was elected an Associate of the Royal Institute of Painters in Water-Colours. He became one of the foremost modern painters of landscape and of peasant life, painting in a semi-Impressionist style. He was fascinated with the effects of light and his work often featured figures set against the sun. His pictures excel in rendering the appearance of objects under flecking outdoor sunlight, or in the shady shelter of a barn or stable. In 1880 the Hay Gatherers by Jules Bastien-Lepage (1848-84) was shown at the Grosvenor Gallery in London, where Clausen, a fellow exhibitor, admired it. A painting expedition to the artists’ colony at Quimperlé, Brittany in 1882 underscored his new allegiances; there followed an impressive sequence of paintings of fieldworkers, such as Labourers After Dinner (1884). His stunning The Girl at the Gate (1889) was acquired by the Chantrey Trustees and is now in the collection of the Tate. In 1881 Clausen married and settled at Cookham Dean, Berkshire. Two years later, he went to Paris to study under Bouguereau and Fleury at the Académie Julian. He settled at Widdington in Essex, upon his return to England in 1891. Clausen was elected ARA in 1895 and was committed to reform of the selection process of the RA and was a founder member of the New English Art Club. His early NEAC exhibits The Shepherdess (1885; Liverpool, Walker Art Gallery.) and The Stone Pickers (1887; Newcastle upon Tyne, Laing Art Gallery), exemplify Bastien-Lepage’s creed of rustic naturalism in their broad ‘square-brush’ technique and the placing of figures within the landscape. Clausen was the most widely respected of the NEAC painters and he promoted the interests of the Glasgow Boys when they made their London début at the Grosvenor Gallery in 1890. Clausen’s first solo show was held in 1902 at the Goupil Gallery. In 1904 he was elected RA and appointed their Professor of Painting. He was widely regarded as the most popular professor at the Academy since Sir Joshua Reynolds and his lectures were well-attended. Like Reynolds, he suggested to his students that they should look at the Old Masters. Clausen gave a memorable series of lectures to the students which were published as Six Lectures on Painting (1904) and Aims and Ideals in Art (1906). His interest in the female nude is evident in such works as Primavera (1914). Clausen was an official war artist during the Great War, in which his daughter’s fiancé was killed. The event may well have inspired his painting Youth Mourning. Given his advanced years, he was excused the journey to the Western Front and painted In the Gun Factory at Woolwich Arsenal (1918; IWM). During the 1920s, Clausen painted landscapes around his country cottage on Dutton Hill, Essex. The success of his wartime work led to several invitations to paint murals, notably Wycliffe’s English Bible for the Palace of Westminster (1926). Upon completion of that project, he was knighted. During the 1930s, he continued to exhibit regularly at the RA and in his 88th year, his My Back Garden (1940; London, Tate) was purchased for the Chantrey Bequest. Sir George died aged 92 in 1944.