Albert Chevallier Tayler Sport Art

Albert Chevallier Tayler was born in Leytonstone on 5 April 1862, the youngest of seven sons of a solicitor, William Moseley Tayler. Albert was educated at Bloxham School, Oxfordshire, and after studies at Heatherleys and the Royal Academy School, he undertook a three-year scholarship at the Slade School of Art. He was a keen if not exceptional cricketer, later playing in Authors v Artists matches alongside such other luminaries as Arthur Conan Doyle, J.R.Reid, F.C.Batson, P.G.Wodehouse, E.W.Hornung, G.Hillyard Swinstead, E.V.Lucas, and J.M.Barrie. . Tayler’s studies had taken him to France, where he was influenced by the Impressionists and studied under Jean-Paul Laurens and Carlos Duran, winning the Second-Class Paris Salon 1891 Hors Concours prize. A founder member, with Henry Scott Tuke, of The Newlyn School, in 1903 Albert Chevallier Tayler executed a panel at the Royal Exchange in London representing The Vintners Company entertaining the Five Kings (England, France, Scotland, Denmark and Cyprus), . By the peak of his career Chevallier Tayler’s reputation was supported by exhibitions at the Fine Art Society, the Royal Institute of Oil Painters, and the Royal Academy. In 1906, when the Canterbury commission came his way, In 1896 Tayler had married Mrs Elizabeth Cotes, daughter of a surgeon to the household of the Prince of Wales. Tragedy was to strike in later years when both their sons were killed in the Great War. On 20 December 1925, Albert Chevallier Tayler died from acute bronchitis. He was buried in St Mary’s Cemetery, Kensal Green. He is most widely remembered for his depictions of cricketers, and chiefly for this stunning view of a famous match at Canterbury.