Thomas Somerscales

Biography

The storm of 1875 off Valparaíso, by common account, decided everything that followed. Somerscales was aboard the Chilean corvette Esmeralda as she fought the weather for several hours, and afterwards he almost stopped painting anything but ships.

He was born on 29 October 1842 in Kingston upon Hull. His father was a merchant ship’s captain who sketched a little, and his uncle painted as an amateur. Somerscales had no formal training as an artist and at first chose the career of a teacher.

In 1863 he joined the Royal Navy as a schoolmaster. He served mostly in the Pacific: six years on HMS Cumberland, then on the corvette HMS Clio and on HMS Zealous, flagship of the Pacific Station. In the summer of 1869 he fell ill during a voyage, was put ashore at Valparaíso and was discharged from the navy. Where exactly he fell ill, the sources disagree: Tahiti and Panama are both named. He stayed in Chile and taught, from 1874 at the Mackay School in Valparaíso, and gradually made painting his main occupation. At the international exhibition in Santiago in 1872 he showed three landscapes and won a silver medal. After the incident with the Esmeralda he concentrated on marine subjects. He devoted many canvases to the battles of the War of the Pacific between Peru and Chile. Best known is the picture of the sinking of the Esmeralda by the Peruvian ironclad Huáscar at the Battle of Iquique on 21 May 1879. When the war ended, he turned to merchant ships off the coast of South America. In 1892 Somerscales returned to England, and a year later he exhibited a picture at the Royal Academy of Arts in London for the first time; by 1928 twenty-eight of his works had been shown there. In 1893 he was still being described in England as a little-known artist, although he had already received some praise. In 1899 he painted one of his best-known canvases, “Off Valparaíso”, again on a Chilean theme. He travelled to Chile again in 1903, 1907, 1909 and 1912, and from 1915 he lived in England permanently.

Chile knows him better than his own country does. His works are held in Tate, the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, the Ferens Art Gallery in Hull and the Museo de Bellas Artes in Santiago. The story of his life and work is set out in detail by Alex Hurst in the book “Thomas Somerscales, Marine Artist”. His manner is thought to have influenced the Chilean marine painter Álvaro Casanova Zenteno (1857–1939).

Somerscales died on 27 June 1927 in Kingston upon Hull. A green commemorative plaque to him stands on The Avenues in Hull.