Matthew "Matt" Somerville Morgan

Biography

Matthew Somerville Morgan was born in Lambeth, London on the 27th April, 1839. Matthew’s father was an actor and a teacher of music. The artists’ mother was a singer and an actress. Initially he studied scene-painting and followed his profession in the theatre, but later he became an artist and correspondent for the "Illustrated London News." Matthew also studied in Italy, Spain and Paris and in 1858 he was one of the first artists to penetrate into the interior of Africa reporting for the "News" the Austro-Italian war. From there he took up a post as joint editor, artist and proprietor of the “Tomahawk" a comic illustrated London paper.  His most famous cartoons were attacks on the royal family; in fact he was the first artist to do so. He was involved in the establishment of the London "Fun" and a volume of his cartoons were published under the title "American War Cartoons" (London, 1874). In 1867 to 1869 he was principal scene-painter to the Royal Italian opera, Covent Garden. In 1870 he travelled to the United States where he acted as manager of several New York theatres.  In 1880 he went to Cincinnati to manage the Strobridge lithograph company which he did until 1885. In 1883 he founded the Matt Morgan art pottery company, and the Cincinnati art students' league. He has painted a series of large panoramic pictures, representing battles of the civil war, which were exhibited in Cincinnati in 1886.