Arthur Fitzwilliam Tait 1819 - 1905

Arthur Fitzwilliam Tait was an artist who worked as a painter and lithographer. Born in Liverpool in 1819, at the age of twelve he came to work at Agnew and Zanetti’s “Repository of Arts", a fancy goods shop and publishers, based in Manchester. He began to teach himself to draw and paint, spending his time in the Royal Manchester Institution and studying the artworks there. In 1838 he began to teach drawing, having left Agnew and Zanetti. Between 1845 and 1848 he embarked on a series of railway-themed works, including the illustrations for "Views on the Manchester and Leeds Railway, Drawn from Nature, and on Stone, by A. F. Tait; With a descriptive history, by Edwin Butterworth." Through a relative, in 1850 Tait became involved in a venture to tour a painting of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. The tour took him to New York, where he made contact with local artists and subsequently settled. Tait's American works frequently depicted wild and domestic animals, and included many commissions for the Currier and Ives publishing company.