1516
renowned Scottish painter David Wilkie. After consider-
ing the priesthood, Wynfi eld decided to become an artist
and entered the studio of James Mathews Leigh. There
he learned to practice a style of historical genre painting
and met the young artists with whom he would form the
St. John’s Wood Clique. Wynfi eld exhibited at the Royal
Academy for the fi rst time in 1859, and continued to do
so regularly thereafter. Taking up photography around
1860, he produced a number of soft-focus, bust-length
portraits of artists from wet-collodion negatives on
albumen paper, some of which were published in 1864
under the title The Studio. Although Julia Margaret
Cameron credited Wynfi eld as her major infl uence, he
received little acclaim in Photographic Society circles.
It is not known if he continued to make photographs
into the 1870s and 1880s. Wynfi eld died of tuberculosis
in 1887.
See also: Art photography; Historiography of
nineteenth-century photography; Impressionistic
photography; Portraiture; Hering, Henry & Co.;
WYNFIELD, DAVID WILKIE
Illustrated London News; Wet Collodion Negative;
and Photographic Exchange Club and Photographic
Society Club, London.Further Reading
“David Wilkie Wynfi eld.” In The Golden Age of British Photog-
raphy 1839–1900, edited by Mark Haworth-Booth, 120, New
York: Aperture, 1984.
Garner, Margaret A. K., “David Wynfi eld: Painter and Photogra-
pher.” Apollo 97, no. 132 (February 1973):158–59.
Hacking, Juliet, “David Wilkie Wynfi eld: ‘The Great Amateur.’”
History of Photography 19/4 (Winter 1995): 322–327.
Hacking, Juliet, Princes of Victorian Bohemia: Photographs by
David Wilkie Wynfi eld, London/Munich: National Portrait
Gallery/Prestel, 2000.
Lukitsh, Joanne, “Reminders of Titian and Van Dyck: The Reader
Reviews the Portrait Photographs of David Wilkie Wynfi eld,
1864.” Victorian Periodicals Review 24/2 (Summer 1991):
56–63.
Taylor, Tom, “English Painters of the Present Day: XXVI. D. W.
Wynfi eld.” Portfolio 2/13 (1871): 84–87.