Robert John Hammond

Young Girl by a Cottage

Robert John Hammond was a landscape painter born in Hackney, London, in 1853. Later on, he moved to the Midlands area, where he became well known for his landscapes and rural scenes of the surrounding countryside. Hammond lived for a time in the Balsall Heath area of Birmingham and exhibited widely between 1882–1911 at the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists as well as at the Manchester Art Gallery. Hammond’s paintings show a pre-raphaelite influence, particularly in his rendering of the landscape and use of colors. Often depicting cottages and rosy-cheeked children at play, they serve as a reminder of a life far removed from the emerging industrial cities of the time. Towards the end of his life, Hammond lived near Aston in Warwickshire, where he died in 1911. An example of his work can be found at the Birmingham Museum.