Hughes, Arthur 1830-1915
English painter

Born in London, he entered the Royal Academy schools in 1847, and, by 1852, had become associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and its principal members, Holman Hunt, J E Millais and D G Rossetti. Although he never formally joined the Brotherhood, he produced several paintings during the 1850s that rank as some of the finest of works executed in its typically precise and richly coloured style, such as April Love (1855, Tate Gallery, London) and The Long Engagement (1859, Birmingham). He also, from around 1855, pursued a successful career as an illustrator of the works of, amongst others, Alexander Munro and Christina Rossetti. He visited Italy in 1862 and the same year completed Home from Sea (Ashmolean, Oxford), but later lived a reclusive life and exhibited for the last time at the Academy in 1908.