Packed with action and color, William Frith’s seven-foot-four-inch panorama
of a day at the races focuses on the people rather than the sport.
Frith spent nearly two years on the painting. After working out the general composition, he hired a photographer to record at the track “as many queer groups of people as he could”. Adding these pictures to his own recollections, Frith painted the major figures in his studio using live models. The final composition was fitted together like a mosaic.
When the Derby Day was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1858 it proved so fascinating that for the first time in 36 years a railing had to be erected to keep a jostling public from damaging the canvas.
Frith many years later summed up his own career:
“I have never been a great artist”, but “I am a very successful one.”
The World of Whistler (1834-1903) Time Life Books p 51
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