Hunt, (William) Holman 1827-1910
English painter

Born in London, he became a student of the Royal Academy in 1845. He shared a studio with Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and the pair, along with John Everett Millaisand four others, inaugurated the 'Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood', which aimed at painting a detailed and uncompromising truth to nature. The first of his Pre-Raphaelite works was Rienze (1849); others include The Hireling Shepherd (1852), Claudio and Isabella (1853), Strayed Sheep (1853) and The Light of the World (1854, Keble College, Oxford). The result of several visits to the East appeared in The Scapegoat (1856, Port Sunlight) and The Finding of Christ in the Temple (1860). Among his most famous canvases are Isabella and the Pot of Basil (1867) and May Morning on Magdalen Tower (1891). His autobiographical Pre-Raphaelitism and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (1905) is a valuable record of the movement.

Bibliography: A C Gissing, William Holman Hunt (1936)