Henry Jones Thaddeus was something of a child prodigy. He was admitted to the Cork School of Art at the age of ten, winning the coveted Taylor Prize at seventeen. This funded his studies in London 1878 and in Paris the following year. There he came under the influence of Gustave Boulanger and Jules-Joseph Lefebvre, both solid academicians.While the Impressionist revolution did not entirely pass him by, his style was more Courbet than Monet: he was modern in his choice of humble, everyday subjects, but largely traditional in his draughtsmanship and treatment. That said, his best work employs a loose, sensuous handling of paint largely absent from the work of his professors. There are several outstanding examples in the National Gallery of Ireland, notably The Wounded Poacher (1881) and Market Day, Finistère (1882).
Literature:Dr. Julian Campbell: The Irish Impressionists: Irish Artists in France and Belgium 1850–1914. Dublin: National Gallery of Ireland, 1984.Ibid: Onlookers in France. Irish Realist and Impressionist Painters. Cork: Crawford Municipal Art Gallery, 1993Henry Jones Thaddeus: Recollections of a Court Painter. London?New York: John Lane, 1912.
