Wynfield's self-portrait, in profile, of 1861, © Royal Academy of London, photographer: Prudence Cuming Associates Limited, reproduced by kind permission (click on the image to enlarge it).
David Wilkie Wynfield was born in India in 1837, the son of James Stainback Winfield, a captain in the 47th Bengal Native Infantry, and his second wife Sophia May Burroughes. His mother was the niece and adopted daughter of the painter David Wilkie. After his father retired from the military the family moved back to England in the early 1840s. Wynfield was initially intended for the church but did not wish to become a priest and instead chose the career of an artist. He entered James Matthews Leigh's art school in Newman Street in 1856. He first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1859 and exhibited there nearly every year until his death. He also exhibited at the British Institution and the Dudley Gallery. In 1859 he was living at 2 Bristol Gardens in Maida Vale but in 1860 he moved with his widowed mother to 3 Park Place Villas in Paddington. He became interested in photography in the early 1860s and became one of the pioneers of "art photography." He was a major influence on the work of Julia Margaret Cameron. A collection of his photographs was published in 1864 in a book entitled The Studio: A Collection of Photographic Portraits of Living Artists, Taken in the Style of Old Masters, by an Amateur.
Wynfield was a founding member of the St. John's Wood Clique group of painters. He was the only member of that group to not eventually be elected to membership in the Royal Academy, perhaps because he died prematurely at age forty-nine. In 1867 he had moved to Grove End Road in St. John's Wood near to his sister Anne and her husband, fellow painter William Frederick Yeames. Wynfield was a member of the of the 38th Middlesex regiment of the Artists' Rifles Corps [Artists Rifles], eventually rising to the rank of Captain of "H" company in 1880. He did not marry and died from tuberculosis on May 26, 1887. He was buried in Highgate Cemetery.
Bibliography
Hacking, Juliet. Princes of Victorian Bohemia. Photographs by David Wilkie Wynfield. London: Prestel, 2000, 34.
Taylor, Tom. "English Painters of the Present Day. XXVI – D. W. Wynfield." The Portfolio II (1871): 84-7.
Created 12 December 2023