Death Notice - The Times Wednesday 27th September 1893.

MOORE. On 25th September 1893 at 3.00 a m at 2, Spenser-street, Victoria-street NW, aged 52, Albert Moore RWS, youngest son of the late William Moore of York, and brother of Henry Moore RA-Elect. Interment at Highgate this day, the 27th at 3.30 o'clock. Friends please accept this the only intimation. The Times Wednesday September 27th 1893.

OBITUARY. The Times, Wednesday 27th September 1893
Mr Albert Moore

We regret to announce the death of Mr Albert Moore the well-known painter which occurred on Monday at his house in London. The illness from which he suffered, internal cancer-was known to be incurable, but the last stages were so rapid that the death has come upon his many friends and admirers as a surprise.

He was born in York in 1841, and was the brother of Mr Henry Moore RA, the distinguished sea-painter, whose art resembled his own in nothing except its perfection and in the comparative narrowness of the limits in which it was exercised. Mr Albert Moore had for many years devoted himself to one class of subjects, and it may almost be said one model, that of a Greek girl clothed in pale figured or flowered drapery, and very gracefully posed. Sometimes the picture consisted of just one figure, sometimes of two or more in various attitudes, but in every case what struck the spectator was the beauty of the type, and the consummate knowledge of form and line shown by the artist.

It was often asked why Mr Moore who had been for several years a member of the Royal Watercolour Society was not elected into the Royal Academy, especially as his art had so close an affinity with the president (Lord Leighton). No answer can be given that is quite satisfactory, for no unprejudiced person could deny that he was amongst the sixty, or seventy best artists of the day. Posterity, indeed, may rank him, on the strength of his very special gifts as among the best ten or twenty. Probably the reason was that to the majority of Academicians his art seemed a little far-fetched, and a little exotic, and that the monotony of his work stood in the way of its success. Fortunately, however, an artist's reputation is only very slightly affected by his living or dying inside or outside the Academical circle. Mr Albert Moore will always be remembered as the possessor of a very beautiful, if slender talent, and as the contributor of one clear note to the complex harmony of modern art.

MY COMMENTS.

In my page about Albert Joseph Moore, one of the greatest of aesthetic artists I have featured an article from the Art Journal of 1893, which deals most effectively in the two unfair comments in this otherwise excellent short obituary, namely that of slender talent and monotony. Moore is one of my favourite Victorian artists, hence my irritation with Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery who display three of his wonderful pictures with truly staggering insensitivity. The decision of the Moore family to hold the funeral so shortly after Albert Moore's death explains the absence of Whistler, his friend and admirer, and Frederic Leighton from his funeral.
PHR. 21/9/02.

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