About Benjamin Walter Spiers
Benjamin Walter Spiers was born in 1845 and lived in Lodon, he later died in 1894.
He was known for his complicated still life watercolour paintings. His paintings would be packed with different mismatched objects which test a skill for mimetic detail.
Some of his compositions actually show the interiors of his favourite antique shops in Wardour Street, in London’s Soho, while one of his largest pieces may even depict a room in his own Bayswater home. Certainly the frequency with which he reused objects suggests that he owned them or could access them quickly and regularly.
Spiers may stand as the leading Victorian exponent of another, much more established, tradition for displaying accumulated man-made collections of battered, mismatched objects often seem to undermine the usual intention of such displays to confirm the wealth of conspicuous consumers. They concentrate not on monetary worth, but on associative value, a quality perhaps best conveyed by books.
He exhibited at the RA, RBA, RHA, RI, B, D, L.
