William Powell Frith William Powell Frith (19 January 1819 – 9 November 1909), was an English painter specialising in portraits and Victorian era narratives, who was elected to the Royal Academy in 1852. He is buried in Kensal Green Cemetery London W10. Born in Aldfield, North Yorkshire, Frith was encouraged to take up art by his father, a hotelier in Harrogate. He moved to London in 1835 where he began his formal art studies at Sass’s Academy in Charlotte Street, before attending the Royal Academy Schools. Frith started his career as a portrait painter and first exhibited at the British Institution in 1838. In the 1840s he often based works on the literary output of writers such as Charles Dickens, whose portrait he painted, and Laurence Sterne.