William Rimmer was an American artist born in Liverpool, England. He was the son of a French refugee, who emigrated to Nova Scotia, where he was joined by his wife and child in 1818, and who in 1826 moved to Boston, where he earned a living as a shoemaker. The son learned the father's trade; at fifteen became a draughtsman and sign-painter; then worked for a lithographer; opened a studio and painted some ecclesiastical pictures.

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  • William Rimmer was an American artist born in Liverpool, England. He was the son of a French refugee, who emigrated to Nova Scotia, where he was joined by his wife and child in 1818, and who in 1826 moved to Boston, where he earned a living as a shoemaker. The son learned the father's trade; at fifteen became a draughtsman and sign-painter; then worked for a lithographer; opened a studio and painted some ecclesiastical pictures. In 1840 Rimmer made a tour of New England painting portraits, he lived in Randolph, Massachusetts, in 1845-1855 as a shoemaker, for the last years of the decade practising medicine; practised in East Chelsea, Massachusetts and received a diploma from the Suffolk County Medical Society and in 1855 removed to East Milton, Massachusetts where he supplemented his income by carving busts from blocks of granite. In 1860 Rimmer made his head of St. Stephen and in 1861 his Falling Gladiator. Rimmer's sculptures, except those mentioned and The Fighting Lions, A Dying Centaur, and a statue of Alexander Hamilton (made in 1865 for the city of Boston), were soon destroyed. He worked in clay, not modelling but building up and chiselling; almost always without models or preliminary sketches; and always under technical disadvantages and in great haste; but his sculpture is anatomically remarkable and has an early Greek simplicity and strength. Rimmer published Elements of Design (1864) and Art Anatomy (1877), but his great work was in the classroom, where his lectures were illustrated with blackboard sketches. Rimmer's most famous work, though not normally associated with him, is Evening: Fall of Day. This paint-on-canvas portrays a falling angel and a modified version was used by Swan Song Records, the recording label founded in 1974 by English rock group Led Zeppelin, in their label art. It is often assumed to be a picture of Apollo, the Greek Sun-God but Rimmer himself never stated the name of the figure. It could be said that features of the work rule out Apollo as the subject. These include the wings (Apollo typically has no wings and rode in a chariot) and the lack of genitals (this is not only in dispute with typical images of Apollo were he is most definitely male - it also indicates the subject is an angel, which are sexless). Some theorize it to be a picture of Icarus, Lucifer, Satan, or Daedalus. As above the lack of genitals rule out Icaraus or his father, Daedalus. The Lucifer theory may be derived from the name of the work. Lucifer is Latin for Morning Star or Light-Bringer. The Evening is the ending for the day's light and so the angel is seen to be falling. Also, the painting bears similarities to the statue of Lucifer, El Angel Caído, by Ricardo Bellver in 1877, which resides in Parque del Buen Retiro . Both are of sexless angels, apparently falling and in pain as they do so. Bellver's work was inspired by the fall of Lucifer in Milton's Paradise Lost.
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  • William Rimmer was an American artist born in Liverpool, England. He was the son of a French refugee, who emigrated to Nova Scotia, where he was joined by his wife and child in 1818, and who in 1826 moved to Boston, where he earned a living as a shoemaker. The son learned the father's trade; at fifteen became a draughtsman and sign-painter; then worked for a lithographer; opened a studio and painted some ecclesiastical pictures.
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  • William Rimmer
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