Charles Haslewood Shannon

Born in Quarrington, Lincolnshire to a country rector, Shannon had a more conventional upbringing than his lifelong partner Charles de Sousy Ricketts and his personality was more reserved. Oscar Wilde likened him to a marigold to Ricketts's orchid. Inspired by a meeting with the French artist Pierre-Cécile Puvis de Chavannes in 1887, Shannon retired from the world to perfect his abilities as a painter while Ricketts provided an income through work as an illustrator. After a decade studying Old Masters such as Titian, the policy came to fruition when he won a gold medal at the Annual Exhibition of Fine Arts, Munich in 1897.

Text © National Portrait Gallery, London