George Clausen

George Clausen painted English rural life: farm workers in the fields, harvesters, girls at a gate, orchards in blossom. His early work is sharp and realist, and later he loosened his brushwork to catch the effect of sunlight flickering outdoors.

He was born in London in 1852 to a Danish father and a Scottish mother. He studied at the South Kensington Schools and then at the Académie Julian in Paris under Bouguereau and Tony Robert-Fleury, and he was influenced by the French painter Jules Bastien-Lepage. He was a founding member of the New English Art Club in 1886 and became a Royal Academician in 1906. During the First World War he was an official war artist. His Girl at the Gate is in Tate Britain. He was knighted in 1927 and died in Berkshire in 1944.

In An Orchard in May, look at the broken strokes of colour that turn blossom into light.