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Tennyson Cole ( 1862 - 1939)
London.
An English Society Painter made a brief visit to New Zealand in 1892-3
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Governor Grey. Painted in Perth. Australia. 1896.
Maharaja. India. Not labelled. (Refer the book Vanity Varnished. T Cole. 1939*)
Lucy Tiffen, 1893
Prime Minister. Right Honorable John Ballance. 1893 (Sergent Gallery. Wanganui)
Tennyson Cole. Studio. Durban. (In Cole's autobiography Vanity Varnished. 1939 *) (Private collection)
Tennyson Cole Studio. South Yarra. Melbourne. 19th Century.
Tennyson Cole died a pauper in 1939
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Tennyson Cole. Signature. Lucy Tiffen. 1893 ( private collection)
Tennyson Cole, the painter of Lucy was also on tour as a singer when he travelled out of Hobart to Wellington and beyond in 1893. He was a competent portrait painter. He was also a singer. This was interesting. Songs sung to him by his mother in babyhood really got Tennyson Cole going. He took singing to a fairly well fashioned level of pleasure and expertise. He wrote a book about this in 1931. * He sang Alto. Cole went on an Empire jaunt singing. In the last two decades of the nineteenth century. Many English sightseers went abroad in such ways. Most went back home. Cole painted Lucy when he was on tour as a singer when he travelled out of Hobart to Wellington. His ability had got him into a musical group called the Foli troupe at Melbourne. He wrote a book about his travels in 1931. * He went on an Empire jaunt the odd time singing and often painting. particularly in the last two decades of the nineteenth century. Most English 'sight seers' went back home. A Londoner through and through, from a childhood in Soho, Cole was in drawing practice early. He stood up against his father at age fifteen and was soon out on his own. He forages for faces well. for example, by attending the opera backstage, looking through the curtains, sketching seated profiles so that he got faces quickly, structurally. He went to South Africa for the most part of his ‘colonial sortee’. He returned to London from South Africa once he decided he could secure more satisfying, in-depth painting commissions.Predominantly, Cole had worked upon gaining commissions from the military upper- class strata - painting torsos, uniforms and medals.
In provincial quarters he tapped into one or two society images. Women in England invariably sat with pet dogs or cats. Women in the colonies looked back with no dressed decoration. Because his touring was legitimately English colonial, he also spent some time in India and in old Mogul territory. Cole had started his own studio at age seventeen, quitting his father’s care. He was to move to painting regal gowns. Cole wrote his memoirs in 1931 and died in 1939. *He wrote his autobiography in 1931. Vanity Varnished, reminiscences in many colours.