In Memoriam David Elliott

It is with deep sadness that the Pre-Raphaelite Society notes the passing of David Elliott, grandson of a Pre‑Raphaelite artist and a very special friend of the Society.
David was educated at Marlborough. He spent his National Service in Vienna. He then had a career in advertising, working in the US, Canada and the UK, and worked at a consultancy he set up until his retirement.
Many members of the Pre-Raphaelite Society will have met him through the Society events. He was the author of two important books, Charles Fairfax Murray and A Pre-Raphaelite Marriage: The Lives and Works of Marie Spartali Stillman and William James Stillman.
David was the grandson of art  connoisseur, dealer, collector, benefactor, studio assistant and painter Charles Fairfax Murray, whose expertise and gifts strengthened the collections of the Birmingham City Art Gallery, Dulwich Picture Gallery, the Fitzwilliam Museum and the National Gallery. There was no one better-suited to write his biography than David. There is no memorial to David; his memorial is the mirror which Dante Gabriel Rossetti had in his home in Chelsea. His family have donated this precious historic artefact with its Pre-Raphaelite connections to the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. It will eventually be displayed alongside the Rossetti Sofa that his grandfather donated to the museum a century earlier. It is fitting that an item which reflects life will reflect the life of our special friend, and he will be missed.

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