He was, right from the beginning, hardworking and ambitious. He worked for some time producing illustrations for The Graphic newspaper. In a real coup for the young artist, he was retained to illustrate the last novel of Charles Dickens ‘Edwin Drood.’

Fildes was, at this time, something of a social progressive, and produced one of the greatest paintings of Victorian social deprivation ‘Applicants for Admission to a Casual Ward.’  Even at this distance in time, the condition of the under-nourished, ragged, wretched people waiting in the rain for admission is shocking. The characterisation of the people, and the vividness and clarity of the painting are still impressive. Fildes has been criticised for not continuing in this vein, but the Victorian establishment always described such paintings as unpatriotic, and compared them to’ doing the dirty washing in public.’

His next picture was ‘The Widower,’ of a lonely old man at home. In 1891 he produced ‘The Doctor,’ The doctor is looking over an unconscious child, who is at, what was called in those pre anti-biotic, days the crisis. The gravity of the expression of the Doctor, and the highlighting of the sick child create an unforgettable impression. Fildes himself was the father of a son who died in childhood. The painting was commissioned by Sir Henry Tate, for £3000, then a vast sum of money.

Ultimately Fildes settled down to produce three main types of painting. Firstly Venetian genre scenes, like an 'Alfresco Toilet,’ illustrated elsewhere on this web site. This picture is accomplished, highly decorative, and beautifully done. Secondly he continued to produce some pictures based on social comment. Thirdly Fildes had a thriving, lucrative, portrait painting practice, which bought him a Norman Shaw house in Melbury Road, made him rich, and earned him a knighthood. In 1894 he painted the Princess of Wales 1844-1925, afterwards Queen Alexandra. In 1902 a state portrait of Edward the Seventh. In 1905 a state portrait of Queen Alexandra. In 1912 a state portrait of George the Fifth.  Other notable portraits include that of William Hesketh Lever, first Lord Leverhume now at the Lady Lever Gallery.

Within the last month I saw a large portrait by Fildes in an antique shop in Warwick, of a middle aged matriarch. It was for sale at £400. The owner of the shop was aware of it’s provenance, but was of the opinion the only merit the picture had was it’s ornate frame. Have you heard of Fildes I asked? The picture has now gone! Silly old me.

Luke Fildes became ARA  in 1879, and a full Academician in 1887. He died on 27^th February 1927.

Contemporary Comment (1897) by Sir Alfred Temple

Obituary - The Times, Monday 28^th February 1927.

Sir Luke Fildes, An Accomplished Painter.
By the death of Sir Luke Fildes RA, announced in another column the public loses one of it’s favourite painters, the Council of the Royal Academy a very useful and competent member, the Arts Club a valued ex Chairman, and many friends a genial and well-loved associate. Luke Fildes was born in Liverpool on 3^rd October 1844, or according to some 1843, the son of James Fildes of Chester. He was educated privately in the rudiments, and when he was old enough to follow his taste for art was sent to London to study at the South Kensington Schools, then not very long established. He proceeded in time to the Royal Academy Schools, where he did well; and presently as a young man, began to make a name as an illustrator of books and magazines. One of his achievements in this branch has retained a certain celebrity, partly on its merits, but still more for the book’s sake, for it was a set of illustrations to the unfinished ‘Mystery of Edwin Drood.’ The first no appeared in 1870, and Dickens died in the following June, the six parts of the fragments appeared two months later in a volume, with twelve illustrations. They are good renderings of the story and its characters, very much in the manner known as that of illustrations of ‘the sixties,’ though they will not compare with the drawings which Millais was finishing for some of the writers of The Cornhill.

Fildes soon turned to other work, and in 1872 we find him exhibiting at the RA, his first painting being ‘Fair Quiet and Sweet Rest.’ It was successful enough to arouse curiosity about what the young artist would do next; and his answer to the question, an answer which might almost be called triumphant, was given two years later with the large painting called ‘The Casual Ward.’ This piece of pathetic realism, as the term was understood in those days, made a great hit, and Fildes was henceforth a marked man. But it was his one excursion into the life of ‘Les Miserables;’ his tastes and talent did not lie in that direction; and he used in after years to say that the sights he saw in preparing that picture were so harrowing that he neither could or would venture into those regions of art again. He remained pathetic in ‘The Return of the Penitent,’ a girl returning weary and wretched to the home she had left; and also in ‘The Widower,’ which was one of the successes of the exhibition of 1876. Neither the public or the critics had at that time outgrown the liking for pictorial anecdotes, and Fildes satisfied these by his story-telling gifts, and the other by his clever, if a little thin technique.

The following death notice appeared in The Times on the same day.

FILDES.

On February 27^th at 11 Melbury Road, Kensington West, of pnuemonia  after a short illness, Sir Luke Fildes KCVO, RA aged 83. Funeral at Brookwood Cemetary tomorrow Wednesday, leaving the station Westminster Bridge Road at 11.30 a.m.

Memorial Service at St James’s Piccadilly on Thursday at 3.00 p.m.