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John Atkinson Grimshaw’s art, particularly his evening and moonlit works, can evoke a variety of emotions in the viewer - alienation, nostalgia, longing, to name a few. He manages to capture that strange, almost eerie nostalgia that can often flood over us when we find ourselves alone in an autumn street at dusk, or those times when we are suddenly struck with the thought that life is a fleeting illusion. These thoughts, sometimes unsettling, sometimes filling us with a sweet nostalgia for something beyond the present,portable booth suppliers

soon pass - but Atkinson Grimshaw has captured such moods as permanent fixtures for our contemplation. He was a Victorian, and for many living through those times of great change, life had few certainties. At the Park Gate - John Atkinson GrimshawAllPosters Little is known of Grimshaw's life.

We do know he was born in 1836 in Leeds, Yorkshire, to struggling, deeply Protestant, working-class parents. His father was a clerk on the railway and his mother ran a grocery shop.In 1852 Grimshaw also became a railway clerk with Great Northern Railway, but against his parents’ wishes began painting in his spare time despite, it is believed, his mother burning his work and turning the gas off in his room. When Grimshaw married Frances Hubbarde in 1852 the couple lived in a small house in Leeds. Frances, an essential companion to Grimshaw, bore fifteen children, only six of whom reached adulthood. Grimshaw’s artistic success eventually enabled them to occupy larger homes in Leeds and Scarborough. Summer - Atkinson GrimshawAllPosters Atkinson Grimshaw and Industrial Revolution Leeds at this time was a booming Victorian city.

A manufacturing elite was reaping the rich harvest of the Industrial Revolution. They demonstrated their new wealth by building gothic houses to rival the landed gentry, furnishing them with original artworks. Grimshaw reflected these times and his work eventually attracted rich industrialists. Boar Lane, Leeds - Atkinson GrimshawWikimedia Commons His patrons ensured Grimshaw a steady flow of work. Not only did he satisfy his clients’ needs by interpreting the civic pride of Northern cities through architectural accuracy but, by his representations of sunsets and moonlight, he touched them with his ability to replicate a feeling of nostalgia and alienation. Despite the triumphs of industrialism, there was a romantic longing for simpler times, a feeling that something of the human spirit was being eroded.