The oil painting, ‘Study of Mrs. M. Fisher Prout‘ by Louise Pickard, is in the permanent collection of Bradford Museums & Galleries and in 2026 was on display at the Cliffe Castle Museum and Gallery, Keighley.
The mood struck is one of light and colour, but with the paint applied in an effective, economic and impressionistic way. The colours are striking. Reds dominate, as does the black of the subject’s hair, that finds a counterpoint in the pattern of the dress, and in the background curtain. There is a seemingly random grouping of colours on the left side of the subject’s face and neck: red, orange, purple, blue, yellow, that find their echo in colours elsewhere in the scene. It is as if all the colours that express to the artist the essence of the subject are gathered in the face of the sitter – a fellow art student, and most likely her friend.
The subject of Louise Pickard’s painting was [Millicent] Margaret Fisher-Prout (1875-1963), who had also studied art at the Slade School of Art at the same time as Louise Pickard, and who also lived in Chelsea, London (see ‘The Artist’, below).
Margaret Fisher-Prout herself also painted a similar range of subjects in an impressionistic style, not dissimilar to Louise Pickard; see below example: ‘Self-portrait’ by painted in 1950 Fisher-Prout. Both artists also exhibited at the New English Art Club that gave support to impressionistic and expressionist styles of painting.
‘Self-Portrait’ by Margaret Fisher-Prout. (In a private family collection).
The Artist
Louise Pickard (1865-1928) was born in Sculcoates, near Hull. She studied art at the Hull College of Art initially in the 1890s. She aspired to study art beyond Hull, but her parents, Anthony and Sarah, would not allow her to go to London to study until she was 30, after which she attended the Slade School of Art, followed by a year in Paris, where she studied sculpture.
On her return to Britain she had a studio at Chelsea and began to exhibit her work widely, including with the Royal Academy, New English Art Club, Chenil Gallery, Groupil Gallery, International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers, and at the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool. She painted landscapes, still life and portraits.
There was a posthumous exhibition in 1928 at the Alpine Gallery, and it was said then that her work had been ‘underappreciated during her lifetime’ and that ‘all her life she struggled against poverty’ which had ‘prevented her from travelling as widely as she wished to as a landscape artist’ (see ‘Art UK’). In the year of her death, 1928, her work was featured at the Venice Biennale.
Her work is held today in permanent collections at the Tate Gallery, Nottingham Castle Museum, Ferens Art Gallery, Hull, and with Bradford Museums & Galleries.