A lovely pair of winter landscape paintings at sunset by George Augustus Williams. One features figures in a snow covered village square near a church. The other depicts a group of children near a village green having a snowball fight.

George Augustus Williams was born on 4 May, 1814 in Marylebone, London into the Williams family of artists. His father was Edward Williams (1781-1855) a landscape painter and patriarch of the Barnes School of artists and his mother was Ann Hildebrandt. He was one of 6 sons who all became artists: Edward Charles Williams (1807-1881), Henry John Boddington (1811-1865), Arthur Gilbert (1819-1895), Sidney Richard Percy (1821–1886) and Alfred Walter Williams (1824–1905). Williams and all of his brothers were tutored by their father.

He married Caroline Francis Smith on 19 February, 1835 and one of their sons Walter Williams (1834–1906) also became an artist. He initially lived in Liverpool Street, Grays Inn Road, London with his family before moving to Castlenau Villas in Barnes around 1846 where he worked out of neighbouring studios with his father, brothers and later son and nephews. This working arrangement gave rise to the artist family becoming known as the Barnes School. Like his father, he painted landscapes but specialised in river scenes of the Thames as well as seascapes and views of Kent and Wales. He exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1841 and also at Suffolk Street and the British Institution from 1842. Williams died at 177 Castlenau in Barnes on 26 May,1901. His gravestone can be found at Barnes Old Cemetery.

© Benton Fine Art