Arthur G. Bell Biography

Arthur George Bell (1849-1916) was born at St Dunstan's-in-the-East, City of London on 21 February 1849, second son of George Bell (1814-1890), a London bookseller in Fleet Street, and his wife Hannah née Simpson (c.1819-1875), who married at St Pancras Church, London on 24 September 1840.

In 1851, Arthur was living at 2 Haverstock Terrace, Hampstead with his parents, 35-year-old George and 32-year-old Hannah and his five siblings, Mary 8, Edward 6, Edith 5, Rachel 3 and a male newly born infant. Arthur was educated at City of London School and studied at the Slade School of Fine Art and later was a pupil of Jean-Léon Gérome (1824-1904) and Charles Auguste Émile Durand, known as Carolus-Duran (1837-1917) at the École Des Beaux Arts in Paris.

Arthur married at Southwell Minster, Nottinghamshire on 27 September 1882, the author and translator, Nancy Regina Emily Meugens (1844-1933), fourth daughter of Peter Joseph Meugens, and the eldest of their three children, Kenneth Norman Bell, was born at Sutherland House, Southwold, Suffolk in 1884.

Arthur was a painter and illustrator and in 1888 a member of the Ipswich Fine Art Club when he exhibited three paintings 'The River Blyth', 'Return of the Haymakers' and 'The Landing Place' and was an exhibitor at the Royal Academy from Westcroft, England's Lane, South Hampstead in 1879 also exhibiting at the Royal Institute of Oil Painters and the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours.

His wife Nancy's (Nancy D'Anvers) books include a series 'An Elementary History of Painting' (1883); 'An Elementary History of Art' (1888); 'Masterpieces of the Great Artists AD 1400-1700' (1893); 'The Student's Handbook of Art' (1895); 'Thomas Gainsborough' (1897); 'Representative Painters of the XIXth Century' (1899); 'The Saints in Christian Art' (1901-04); 'Tintoretto' (1905); 'Paolo Veronese' (1904); 'Architecture' 1913; 'Mantegna' 1911.

Nancy also wrote tourist guides, travel books, lives of saints and translated the text of James Jacques Joseph Tissot's 'The life of our Saviour Jesus Christ; three hundred and sixty-five compositions' with her husband illustrating several of her works. These included 'Skirts of the Great City' (1907), a London tourist guide.

By 1891, they had moved to 'Ruthkeah', St Catherine's Road, Christchurch, Hampshire and by 1911 had left Hampshire for 42 Queens Road, Richmond, Surrey. Arthur George Bell died at 'Rastgarth', Foxholes Road, Southbourne-on-sea, Bournemouth, Dorset on 24 September 1916, aged 67 where he had been living since at least 1912.