We know very little about this gifted artist - the only modern reference uncovered exists in the "Dictionary Of Neglected Artists", an appropriate location, and a fitting current day description of him and his work   -   which is why this site was created.

A comment made in the book is:

It would appear that the reason may well be that as a young man he had no pressing need to either exhibit or to actively seek commissioned work, given his financial situation.  The capability is clearly there however, as an early commissioned portrait of a former mayor of Southampton and much later his portrait "Tom", demonstrate.

Hopefully the material currently assembled on this web site can be progressively increased to do some level of justice to his work.

Herbert Colborne Oakley came into this world on the 17^th December, 1869, in Southampton, England, the second child of Richard Garrett Oakley and Maria Oakley.  It would appear that he enjoyed the benefits of a financially well-endowed family.  His father, who was listed as a "Seedsman And Fruiterer" in the 1881 British Census, became mayor of Southampton in 1908.  He was apparently much respected, being referred to by a Southampton Justice Of The Peace as a man "... who was generous and kind towards every good thing in town".

The Oakley family were partners in Oakley and Watling, a prestigious Southampton company that was a supplier of fruit, vegetables and flowers to amongst others, the Royal Yacht Britannia and to the Titanic prior to its ill-fated voyage. Before the Titanic left its Southampton dock, it had been supplied with 36,000 apples, 16,000 lemons and 13,000 grapefruit. All the meals on board the Titanic were prepared using fruit and vegetables supplied by Oakley and Watling.

Herbert had a sister, Annie, six years older than he, and a brother, Harold, four years younger.  Elise d'Elboux, the artist, was a cousin of his.

It appears that he inherited sufficient wealth from his family to permit him to enjoy the relatively easy life of a gentleman of that era.  This may well have led to him not fulfilling his potential as an artist - given the absence of a need to strive to make a living from his paintings.

Herbert C. Oakley did however receive a considerable education in the arts.  The first reference we find is to his attendance at the Hartley Institute in Southampton, (today part of the University of Southampton), where he was a prize winner in 1889.

Later, he was a student at South Kensington, in London, in what was then the "National Art Training School", which evolved into the Royal College of Art in the late 1890's.  The course of instruction, when it came into being in 1864, consisted of twenty-three stages: ten of drawing ornament, the figure, and flowers from the flat and from the round (mainly, casts); seven of painting the same types of examples; three of modeling them; and the last three devoted to “composition in design”, which included studies from life, time sketches and compositions from nature and from memory.

In 1896, at the age of 26, he was awarded a number of prizes for his work there, as documented in the "The Studio"" and "The Artist"" magazines of that period.

An insight into the evolution of the South Kensington art training institution into what is now the Victoria And Albert Museum, is presented in the following paper: A Grand Design.

Herbert Oakley was clearly influenced by a number of great artists.  Growing up as he did in Southampton, John Everett Millais (1829 - 1896), one of the world's master painters and a fellow Southamptonian, exerted an influence, but only in his early years.  Millais, who along with Holman Hunt and Gabriel Rossetti, formed in the late 1840's the "Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood", a small group of artists intent on founding a movement that was, in their belief, to stay the decadence of English art.  Their resolve, and commitment to each other, and driven by Ruskin's preaching, was to base their work entirely on nature, "... nothing ought to be tolerated but simple bona fide imitation of nature."  Oakley's works, as he matured, were to follow a different doctrine.

The legacy of another Englishman, possibly the greatest artist that England has ever had, Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775 - 1851), played a role in Oakley's artistic development.  A notable painting of Oakley's, sold at auction at Bonhams & Brooks in 1997, was a full size copy (36" x 48") of Turner's 'The Fighting "Temeraire"'.  The scene, of the Temeraire, a veteran of Trafalgar, being towed by a steamship to the breaker's yard, was one of  Turner's greatest, and certainly one of Turner's favorites, referring to it as his "darling".  Oakley's copy was probably painted in the rooms in the basement of National Gallery given over to copyists.

France, and Paris in particular, was to exert a significant influence on him, primarily in his twenties and thirties.  The artistic community in Montmartre and the Latin Quarter were a heady influence on a relatively young Englishman.  The French impressionist masters, notably Monet, Manet and Renoir, were clearly admired, and their influence on his style is felt, to a certain degree, in some of his landscape paintings, a good example being "Bathers" at the Southampton City Art Gallery.

However the artist that he unquestionably admired the most was John Singer Sargent (1856 - 1925).  Born in Florence to American parents, Sargent was and remains one of the world's greatest portrait painters.  He spent a large portion of his life in England.  The high regard, bordering on adoration, that Oakley held him in is evidenced in a number of the letters he wrote. One in particular stands out, written from Florence, on hearing of Sargent's death:

Sargent's work probably had the greatest influence on Oakley's, albeit tempered by the need that every artist should strive to create a style of their own.  Oakley comments on this when comparing Sargent to past masters:

Further references to Sargent, and in particular his work, can be seen in a later section (Lectures and Letters).

There are somewhat sketchy records of his life as an art teacher.  He appears to have taught at Eton, but no records have yet been found to confirm this.

He also taught at Kidderminster.  As reported in the Southampton "Southern Daily Echo" in 1915, (when Oakley would have been 45), he was

Again no records have yet been found to shed further light on his time there.

Having retired, in the early 1910's, he traveled extensively, but France and Italy held special appeal for him, probably related to their artistic heritage.  He, like most serious artists of that period, felt the need to at least experience if not immerse himself in the culture that continued to spawn the greatest artists the world had ever known.  Another probable reason was his desire to travel - and to obtain some respite from winters in Britain. The fact that he was fluent in French and reasonably fluent in Italian, made his trips to these countries far less of a challenge.

Approximately a decade later, in the early 1920's, he settled in St. David's, Wales, though he would continue to visit, almost annually over the next 15 years, his favorite places in France and Italy.