John Atkinson Grimshaw Print: A scene from Act II, Jane Shore

John Atkinson Grimshaw (6 September 1836 – 13 October 1893) was an English Victorian-era artist who has been called a "remarkable and imaginative painter" best known for his nocturnal scenes of urban landscapes

A scene from Act II of Jane Shore. The play, by W.G. Wills, was produced at the Leeds Amphitheatre in 1875 and 1876. The parts of Henry Shore and his errant wife Jane were played by Wilson Barrett and his wife Caroline Heath, who is seen in the painting returning home after her affair with King Edward IV, only to find that her own child had died. The Barretts were close friends of the Grimshaws and introduced them to many other actors who would often be entertained at the Grimshaws' Leeds home, Knostrop Hall, so giving the artist a certain Bohemian reputation.

Around the mid-1870s Grimshaw began to produce aesthetic interiors featuring fashionable women at home, in imitation of artists James Tissot and Lawrence Alma-Tadema. His work was also appearing in London exhibitions at the Bond Street gallery of Agnew's which further enhanced his reputation. In 1878 Barrett became the actor manager of the newly opened Grand Theatre in Leeds.

According to a letter written by the artist's daughter Enid to her brother-in-law circa 1917, this room set from the play had been re-created in the Barretts' own home in Beech Grove, Leeds, but why the artist chose to paint it is not clear as the very subject must have been painful, with three Grimshaw children recently dead from diphtheria. However the artist's new found interest in richly appointed and elegantly furnished rooms was probably an attraction, as was the commission from Barrett who had the painting hung at the Grand Theatre for many years.

In both landscapes and interiors Grimshaw loved to show different light sources; here, the main figure is illuminated by moonlight shining through the stained glass, while the firelight catches the outlines of the husband and the maid. As in certain other paintings, the central figure is over life size; whether this is just for emphasis or other reasons is unclear. The result is a warm and mysterious interior redolent of comfort and home and very much what the Grimshaws themselves had tried to create in their manorial setting at Knostrop.

Today, he is considered one of the most renowned painters of the Victorian era, as well as one of the best and most accomplished nightscape, and townscape, artists of all time.

Grimshaw's accuracy and drive for realism was criticised by some contemporaries, with one critic claiming that his paintings appeared to ‘showed no marks of handling or brushwork’, adding that ‘not a few artists were doubtful whether they could be accepted as paintings at all’. However, other contemporaries recognised his mastery of lighting and technique, and James McNeill Whistler, whom Grimshaw would go on to work with in his Chelsea studios, stated, “I considered myself the inventor of nocturnes until I saw Grimmy’s moonlit pictures”.