Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Mole, John Henry
MOLE, JOHN HENRY (1814–1886), water-colour painter, was born at Alnwick, Northumberland, in 1814. His early years were passed in a solicitor's office in Newcastle-on-Tyne, but his leisure time was devoted to art, and at the age of twenty-one he began his professional career by painting miniatures. He first exhibited in London at the Royal Academy, where he had four miniatures in 1845 and six in 1846. He also painted landscapes and figure subjects in water-colours, and this led to his election in 1847 as an associate, and in 1848 as a full member, of the New Society of Painters in Water-Colours. He then gave up miniature painting, and about the same time removed to London; thenceforward he contributed regularly to the annual exhibitions of the New Society, afterwards the Royal Institute, of Painters in Water-Colours, of which he became vice-president in 1884. He occasionally painted in oil-colours, and sent a picture, entitled 'Carrying Peat,' to the Royal Academy in 1879. His water-colour drawings met with considerable success, and three of them, 'Tynemouth,' ' Coast of Devon, Gleaners Returning,' and 'Hellersdon Wood, Devonshire,' are in the South Kensington Museum.
Mole died at 7 Guilford Place, Russell Square, London, on 13 Dec. 1886, aged 72, and was buried in Brompton cemetery.
[Athenæum, 1886, ii. 833; Catalogue of the National Gallery of British Art at South Kensington, 1893; Royal Academy Exhibition Catalogues, 1845-79; Exhibition Catalogues of the New Society (afterwards Royal Institute) of Painters in Water-Colours, 1847-87.]