Sparrow, Walter Shaw 1862 - 1940

Walter Shaw Sparrow was born at Cymmau Hall in Gwersyllt Hill, near Wrexham, Flintshire, Wales in 1862. He studied under Alphonse Legros at the Slade School of Fine Art, University College, London, and, from 1880, under Jean-François Portaels, Joseph Stallaert and Joseph van Severdonck at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels.  He subsequently remained in Belgium for seven years and established a studio in Brussels.

He returned to Britain in 1888 and took rooms in Kensington Park, London.  He began to to take part in minor theatrical productions and in 1891 married Ada Bishop (1864–1951), an actress whose stage name was Ada Ferrar.   

In 1899 Sparrow produced publicity for a retrospective exhibition of the work of William Morris as part of the 6th exhibition of the Arts & Crafts Exhibition Society in London, and following the exhibition the proprietors of The Studio appointed him art director of the magazine, a post he held until c.1904.  In 1904 he founded and edited the Art and Life Library, a highly successful series of books on art and architecture published by Hodder & Stoughton. The first in the series was The British Home of To-day : a book of modern domestic architecture & the applied arts (1904),  This revealed Sparrow's enthusiasm for the Arts and Crafts movement on which he subsequently wrote a number of books and articles. Another book in the series was Women Painters of the World, from the time of Caterina Vigri, 1413-1463, to Rosa Bonheur and the present day (1905), a pioneering book on the subject.

Between 1882 and 1887 Sparrow exhibited at the Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts, the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool, and at Manchester City Art Gallery.  He died in London on 11 March 1940