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Dear Visitors Welcome to one of the most comprehensive galleries of John William Waterhouse paintings and the most feature-intensive site on the web dedicated to his works. Waterhouse's works are perhaps the best of the Pre-Raphaelites (although really a Neoclassic). His combination of mythology, poetry and mystique femme fatale is absolutely outstanding and soulfully touching. Here, I pay tribute to the man, my obsession, the master, with the presentation of over 100 paintings, including many high resolution images, through out 5 decades of amazing accomplishments. For each painting you can view the descriptions, its current location, selected poetic depictions, and even send it to a friend instantly. Select any painting and click the floating 'Add > Month' icon to insert your favorite painting into this month's calendar. Print it out using the 'Printable' view. All for free! You can also purchase a poster for selected paintings or go to the posters section for all of the available posters. Enjoy! J.W.Waterhouse Retrospective at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts - October 2, 2009 to February 7, 2010 - "J. W. Waterhouse: Garden of Enchantment is the first large-scale monographic exhibition on Waterhouse’s work since 1978 and the first to feature his entire artistic career. This retrospective features some eighty works that are among the finest and most spectacular of the artist’s production, on loan from public and private collections in Australia, England, Ireland, Taiwan, the United States and Canada. It will also present many of the artist’s attractive studies in oil, chalk and pencil. Several of these works have not been exhibited since Waterhouse’s lifetime." » View more details

Although often classified as a Pre-raphaelite for his style and themes, Waterhouse is truly a Neo-Classic painter. Some of Waterhouse's earlier works were focused on Italian themes and scenery, reflecting his love for his birth place. Later on, his works picked up the styles and classical themes of Pre-raphaelites such as Alma-Tadema and Frederick Leighton. Waterhouse went on to paint well over 200 paintings depicting classical mythogolgy, historical and literary subjects, particularly those of Roman mythology and classic English poets such as Keats and Tennyson. Femme fatale is a common theme in his works, as most are of beautiful elegaic women and of many men are victims.

Waterhouse is one of the rare artists who became popular and relatively well-off financially when he was alive. He continued to paint until his death on the 10th of February, 1917 after a long illness. His style became a major influence on many of the later Pre-raphaelites including Frank Dicksee and Herber James Draper.

Today, many of his works are in private collections or somewhere unknown; however, most of his famous paintings can be found scattered all over England. Among these is "The Lady of Shalott" - 1888, which can be found in London; "Hylas and the Nymphs" - 1896, at Manchester City Art Gallery, and "Echo and Narcissus" - 18xx, at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool. His other famous works can be found around the world including Germany (La Belle Dame Sans Merci), Scotland (Penelope and the Suitors), and Australia (Circe Invidiosa).