Victorian painter Henry John Williams took his wife’s last name as Henry John Boddington to distinguish himself from the prolific Williams family of painters from which he came.
Boddington, whose only formal instruction was from his father, painter Edward Williams, developed a style rich with the textures of landscape, often revealed in dramatic almost theatrical lighting. He also gave many of his paintings great depth, carrying the backgrounds into the distance with layers of atmospheric perspective.
Boddington painted his lush, detailed landscapes of the English countryside in various locations throughout England and Wales, but did not follow many of his contemporaries in traveling to the continent or to the Mediterranean basin.
