Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood Biography

The Pre-Raphaelites were a group of British artists, writers and designers whose work transformed Victorian art. The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was founded in London in 1848 by seven young men, led by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Rejecting conventional academic painting, they admired the close observation, luminous colour and directness of art before Raphael.

Early Pre-Raphaelite paintings often explored religious, literary and contemporary subjects with meticulous attention to nature. The Brotherhood itself was short-lived, but its ideas spread to a wider circle. Later artists such as Edward Burne-Jones and William Morris drew increasingly on medieval romance, symbolism and decorative design. Women artists, including Elizabeth Siddal, Marie Spartali Stillman and Evelyn De Morgan, made important contributions of their own.

The lists below distinguish the seven original Brotherhood members from their close contemporaries and later artists who worked in a related style. These groups were not a single formal membership: some were friends or pupils, while others adopted aspects of Pre-Raphaelite painting independently. John Ruskin was an influential critic and supporter, rather than a Brotherhood member.

Original Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (founded 1848)

• James Collinson (1825–1881)
• William Holman Hunt (1827–1910)
• John Everett Millais (1829–1896)
• Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828–1882)
• William Michael Rossetti (1829–1919), writer and critic
• Frederic George Stephens (1827–1907)
• Thomas Woolner (1825–1892), sculptor and poet

Early associates and closely connected painters

• Ford Madox Brown (1821–1893)
• George Price Boyce (1826–1897)
• John Brett (1831–1902)
• William Shakespeare Burton (1824–1916)
• Charles Allston Collins (1828–1873)
• Walter Howell Deverell (1827–1854)
• William Dyce (1806–1864)
• Arthur Hughes (1832–1915)
• John William Inchbold (1830–1888)
• Joseph Noel Paton (1821–1901)
• Elizabeth Siddal (1829–1862)
• William Bell Scott (1811–1890)
• Henry Wallis (1830–1916)
• Joanna Boyce Wells (1831–1861)

Later followers and artists working in the Pre-Raphaelite style

• Edward Burne-Jones (1833–1898)
• William Morris (1834–1896)
• Evelyn De Morgan (1855–1919)
• Frank Dicksee (1853–1928)
• John Atkinson Grimshaw (1836–1893)
• Henry Holiday (1839–1927)
• Edward Robert Hughes (1851–1914)
• Anna Lea Merritt (1844–1930)
• Frederick Sandys (1829–1904)
• Simeon Solomon (1840–1905)
• John Roddam Spencer Stanhope (1829–1908)
• Marie Spartali Stillman (1844–1927)
• John Melhuish Strudwick (1849–1937)
• John William Waterhouse (1849–1917)
• William Blake Richmond (1842–1921)
• Walter Crane (1845–1915)

Explore the paintings, illustrations, prints and decorative designs associated with these artists in the products below. Some later works reflect individual artists’ subsequent careers rather than the Brotherhood’s original 1848–54 period.