Robert Walker Macbeth was a Scottish painter, etcher and watercolourist, specialising in pastoral landscape

Pastoral

The adjective pastoral refers to the lifestyle of pastoralists, such as shepherds herding livestock around open areas of land according to seasons and the changing availability of water and pasturage. It also refers to a genre in literature, art or music that depicts such shepherd life in an...

 and the rustic genre. His father was the portrait painter Norman Macbeth and his niece Ann Macbeth

Ann Macbeth

Ann Macbeth , born in Halliwell, Bolton, Lancashire, England, was an embroideress and author, a part of the Glasgow Movement and an associate of Charles Rennie Mackintosh....

.

Life

Macbeth studied in London, producing realistic everyday scenes and working for The Graphic

The Graphic

The Graphic was a British weekly illustrated newspaper, first published on 4 December 1869 by William Luson Thomas's company Illustrated Newspapers Limited....

magazine. He painted in the Lincolnshire and Somerset countryside, in works influenced by those of George Hemming Mason

George Hemming Mason

George Hemming Mason was an English landscape painter of rural scenes, initially in Italy, then England itself...

 and Frederick Walker

Frederick Walker (painter)

Frederick Walker was an English social realist painter and illustrator described by Sir John Everett Millais as "the greatest artist of the century".__NOEDITSECTION__-Early Life and training:...

. His The Cast Shoe was bought by the Chantrey Bequest in 1890, and is now at Tate Britain

Tate Britain

Tate Britain is an art gallery situated on Millbank in London, and part of the Tate gallery network in Britain, with Tate Modern, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives. It is the oldest gallery in the network, opening in 1897. It houses a substantial collection of the works of J. M. W. Turner.-History:It...

.

From 1871 Macbeth exhibited at the Royal Academy

Royal Academy

The Royal Academy of Arts is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly, London. The Royal Academy of Arts has a unique position in being an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects whose purpose is to promote the creation, enjoyment and...

, Royal Society of Portrait Painters

Royal Society of Portrait Painters

The Royal Society of Portrait Painters is a British association of portrait painters which holds an annual exhibition at the Mall Galleries in London...

, Grosvenor Gallery

Grosvenor Gallery

The Grosvenor Gallery was an art gallery in London founded in 1877 by Sir Coutts Lindsay and his wife Blanche. Its first directors were J. Comyns Carr and Charles Hallé...

, New Gallery

New Gallery (London)

The New Gallery was an art gallery founded at 121 Regent Street W., London, in 1888 by J. Comyns Carr and Charles Edward Hallé. Carr and Hallé had been co-directors of Sir Coutts Lindsay's Grosvenor Gallery, but resigned from that troubled gallery in 1887....

 and the Fine Art Society

Fine Art Society

The Fine Art Society is an art dealership with two premises, one in New Bond Street, London and the other in Edinburgh . It was formed in 1876...

 in London. There were also exhibitions in the regions at the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists

Royal Birmingham Society of Artists

The Royal Birmingham Society of Artists or RBSA is a learned society of artists and an art gallery based in the Jewellery Quarter in Birmingham, England. it is both a registered charity. and a registered company The Royal Birmingham Society of Artists or RBSA is a learned society of artists and an...

 in Birmingham, the Royal Scottish Academy

Royal Scottish Academy

The Royal Scottish Academy is a Scottish organisation that promotes contemporary Scottish art. Founded in 1826, as the Royal Institution for the Encouragement of the Fine Arts, the RSA maintains a unique position in Scotland as an independently funded institution led by eminent artists and...

 in Edinburgh

Edinburgh

Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...

, the Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts

Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts

The Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts is an independent organisation in Glasgow, founded in 1861, which promotes contemporary art and artists in Scotland. It is the third largest organization of its kind in the United Kingdom...

, the Walker Art Gallery

Walker Art Gallery

The Walker Art Gallery is an art gallery in Liverpool, which houses one of the largest art collections in England, outside of London. It is part of the National Museums Liverpool group, and is promoted as "the National Gallery of the North" because it is not a local or regional gallery but is part...

 in Liverpool and Manchester City Art Gallery.

In the same year (1871) Macbeth was made an associate of the Royal Watercolour Society

Royal Watercolour Society

The Royal Watercolour Society is an English institution of painters working in watercolours...

 (RWS) becoming a full member in 1901. He became a member of the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers and Engravers

Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers

The Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers, until 1991 the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers and Engravers is an art institution based in London, England. The Royal Society of Painter-Etchers and Engravers was a society of etchers established in London in 1880 and given a Royal Charter in 1888...

 (RE) in 1880, and an honorary member in 1909. In 1882 he was elected a member of the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours

Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours

The Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours , initially called the New Society of Painters in Water Colours, , is one of the societies in the Federation of British Artists, based in the Mall Galleries in London.-History:In 1831 the society was founded as the New Society of Painters in Water...

 (RI) and in 1883 was elected to be a member of the Royal Institute of Oil Painters

Royal Institute of Oil Painters

The Royal Institute of Oil Painters, also known as ROI, is an association of painters in London and is the only major art society which features work done only in oil. It is a member society of the Federation of British Artists.-History:...

 (ROI). In 1883 he was elected an associate of the Royal Academy (RA), becoming a full member in 1903.

He married Lydia Esther Bates on 9 August 1887 with whom he had a daughter, Phillis Macbeth, better known as the actress Lydia Bilbrook

Lydia Bilbrook

Lydia Bilbrook was an English actress whose stage and film career spanned four decades. It is claimed that she was an illegitimate daughter of the actor Herbert Beerbohm Tree...

. However, it has been suggested that she was actually the illegitimate daughter of the actor Herbert Beerbohm Tree

Herbert Beerbohm Tree

Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree was an English actor and theatre manager.Tree began performing in the 1870s. By 1887, he was managing the Haymarket Theatre, winning praise for adventurous programming and lavish productions, and starring in many of its productions. In 1899, he helped fund the...

.

External links

• Portraits of RW Macbeth at the National Portrait Gallery
• Biography