Alon Zakaim Fine Art

Born in Liverpool in 1864 and raised in Manchester, Tom Mostyn, the son of the artist Edwin Mostyn, studied at the Manchester Academy of Fine Arts. He had his first local exhibition in 1880, and was showing at the Royal Academy (R.A.) by the age of 29. He is mainly recognised for his romantic garden scenes, although his style was so eclectic throughout his career that it is hard to believe that the same artist created all of his paintings.

In Mostyn's earliest works he depicted the poverty of the working classes in the style of the realists, an effective way of raising social consciousness. However, Mostyn also had a lighter side that followed the traditions of many more traditional Victorian artists. During the early part of his career he painted a number of sumptuous Victorian garden scenes.

The late 1890's also found the artist experimenting with religious images, for which he received recognition as "one of the few modern painters who can paint a religious picture with absolute sincerity" (Daily Mail, June 27, 1907). Although he readily changed styles, Mostyn was always praised.

In 1918, after WWI, Mostyn moved to Devon where he concentrated on a series of enchanted garden scenes for which he would become best known. Leaving realism behind, Mostyn began to paint dream-like landscapes, idealising nature by working with, and building upon, his knowledge of nature's strength and beauty. By piling thick layers of intensely bright coloured pigment onto the canvas with a palette knife, he overwhelmed the viewer with a barrage of visual stimuli in an effort to evoke their imagination.

He had a number of solo exhibitions during the 1920s at the Fine Art Society, London: "Gardens of Enchantment" (July 1920),"Glorious Devon" (1922) and "Gardens of Romance" (June 1923 & July 1925). Mostyn exhibited at the Royal Academy, and was a member of the Royal Institute of Painters in Oil-Colours, the Royal Cambrian Academy, and the Royal West of England Academy. He also exhibited in the Paris Salon, and at the Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh. He died in 1930.