Thomas Matthews Rooke (1842, London – 1942, London) was a British watercolourist. He worked as a designer, as an assistant to other artists, and was commissioned by John Ruskin to make architectural drawings.
Life
Ruskin hired Rooke from Morris & Co. in 1879, and Rooke was still paid by him eight years later. In 1884 he was painting Italian architecture. Ruskin's project aimed to record threatened landscapes and buildings, and for it he also employed Frank Randal (1852–1917), and half a dozen others.
In parallel Rooke was a studio assistant to Edward Burne-Jones, during the period 1868 to 1898. He also did work for Sydney Cockerell and the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings; and exhibited at the Royal Academy and Grosvenor Gallery. He contributed a painting to an 1882 book Bedford Park, celebrating the then-fashionable garden suburb of that name.
Family
Rooke married Leonora Jane Jones; the wood-engraver Noel Rooke was their son.
Notes
- Huon L. Mallalieu (1986). The Dictionary of British Watercolour Artists up to 1920. Antique Collectors' Club. p. 294. ISBN 1-85149-025-6.
- Rachel Dickinson (2009). John Ruskin's Correspondence with Joan Severn: Sense and Nonsense Letters. MHRA. p. 291. ISBN 978-1-905981-90-8.
- Scott Wilcox; Christopher Newall (January 1992). Victorian Landscape Watercolors. Hudson Hills. p. 39. ISBN 978-1-55595-071-2.
- Mark Frost (2014). The Lost Companions and John Ruskin's Guild of St George: A Revisionary History. Anthem Press. p. 193. ISBN 978-1-78308-283-4. Mentioned are Angelo Alessandri, John Wharlton Bunney, Henry Stacy Marks, Charles Fairfax Murray, and Henry Roderick Newman.
- Timothy Hilton (2002). John Ruskin. Yale University Press. p. 805. ISBN 978-0-300-09099-4.
- Dollman, John Charles; Hargitt, Edward; Harrison, Thomas Erat; Jackson, F. Hamilton; Nash, Joseph Jr.; Paget, H. M.; Rooke, Thomas; Trautschold, Manfred; Brooks, Vincent; Carr, Jonathan T.; Berry, Berry F. (1882). Bedford Park. Harrison and Sons. OCLC 193146366.
- Horne, Alan. "Rooke, Noel". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/69374. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
External links
- More works by Rooke @ ArtNet
- Biographical notes @ Bonhams
- 19 artworks by or after Thomas Matthews Rooke at the Art UK site