The Pipe and the Bottle
Noted particularly for his historical genre works, Henry Gillard Glindon was born in London in 1852. He went to live with his grandfather at an early age after his mother passed away.
Glindoni started his working life following in his grandfather’s footsteps, helping him to paint theatre scenery. To supplement his income, he began sketching portraits of the actors. Encouraged by the response to his work, he began studying at the Working Men’s College and the Castle Street School of Art during the evenings. By the age of 20 he was earning his living as an artist, initially with landscapes as his predominant subject matter. However, he soon expanded this to figurative and genre scenes often of an historical nature, which then became his main body of work and for which he is perhaps best known. In 1873 he made his debut at the Royal Academy. Sometime around 1877, he began signing his works H. Gillard Glindoni, most likely for professional reasons.
From 1879, he exhibited at the Royal Society of British Artists and at the Old Watercolour Society (now Royal Watercolour Society). He became an associate of the Royal Watercolour Society in 1883.
