Image of Studio/Garden here?
Foreword It is now over thirty years ago that I first put together a catalogue of pictures such as these at The Studio. At that time, we had just published our tome on British Impressionism entitled A Garden of Bright Images, and Lord’s Wood and its Studio were already ten years into the making. Now well established, the Studio grounds feature a collection of sculpture by artists that Messum’s represent. And while the London Gallery continues to flourish with regular exhibitions of contemporary art, here, at the Studio, the emphasis is on the sort of paintings with which we made our name: the best of British figurative art from Victorian to post-war modernism. This catalogue illustrates the first of what we hope to be bi-annual exhibitions of newly acquired works on view at The Studio, Lord’s Wood. Genres and subjects fall in and out of fashion far too quickly to follow merely for their own sake. A good painting, however, is above all, based on quality and truth, and as such, never goes out of style. Impressionism is one of those “isms” that remains constant and always in demand. Traditional genres, such as marine and landscape paintings still practically define nineteenth-century British art, and, are irresistibly inexpensive at the moment, but poised, I feel, to shift appreciably northward. This catalogue is available online, but at the Studio, we can offer collectors bespoke, one-on-one consultation, over 50 years of expertise and guided access to our remarkable archives. We look forward to your call, and are happy to offer free delivery and home viewing of any the works included here. But above all, we look forward to your visit and the opportunity to show you our exhibition and the Studio’s stunning sculpture gardens. David Messum
The Studio, Lord’s Wood, Marlow, Buckinghamshire, SL7 2QS by appointment - please telephone +44 (0)1628 486565
Messum’s, 28 Cork Street, London W1S 3NG +44 (0)20 7437 5545 info@messums.com www.messums.com
Messum’s Wiltshire, Place Farm, Court St, Tisbury, Salisbury, Wiltshire, SP3 6LW +44 (0)1747 445042 info@messumswiltshire.com www.messumswiltshire.com
The Studio Winter 2016
presented by
DAVID MESSUM
The Studio, Lord’s Wood, Marlow, Buckinghamshire, SL7 2QS by appointment - please telephone +44 (0)1628 486565
John Duncan Fergusson NEAC, 1874–1961
1. The Terrasse, Le Touquet Casino, Night, 1905
oil on canvas 55 x 39 cms 215⁄8 x 15 3⁄8 ins inscribed with title verso
John Duncan Fergusson probably painted this picture between 1904 and 1905, based on the setting: the terrace of the old Château Daloz, which was incorporated into the Hotel Hermitage (now the Casino de la Fôret) around or just after 1904. Some of the artist’s earliest works feature French café society, and following Whistler’s example, Fergusson often focused on capturing atmospheric effects, particularly how the shift from daylight to electricity influenced human behavior. His first shows with the Baillie Gallery in London featured similar paintings of Le Touquet-ParisPlage, the modish resort near Étaples on the Normandy coast. These exhibitions were successful enough to allow his move to Paris, and in 1907, he exhibited at Salon d’Automne, alongside such (then) controversial artists as Derain and Matisse. The painting was owned by William Evans (1847–1918), a Welsh judge and eclectic collector of works by Bayes, Bevan, Ginner, Gilman, Gore and Sickert, all of which were sold by the Goupil Gallery in 1918.
Henry Herbert La Thangue RA NEAC, 1859–1929 2. In a Cottage Garden (The Sawing Horse), 1896 oil on canvas 114 x 88 cms 45 x 34 5⁄8 ins signed and inscribed on an old label verso
Exhibited at The RA in 1896, Kenneth McConkey noted that while other artists of the time painted similar genre subjects, La Thangue uniquely focused on social commentary. By this time, industrialisation had replaced agriculture to the point where farm life, as contemporary subject matter, was practically an anachronism. Moreover, critics were taken aback by his uncompromisingly realistic composition, which was in no way romanticised, even by blossoms and golden light. In fact, as a painter of rural subjects, La Thangue’s only rivals in England were Clausen and Stott and for the most part he perpetuated the ideals of French naturalism. But his focus on the physical realities of labour, and the need to capture them in a single image, led him to explore serial photographic imagery, which, at this time, was still a modern artistic conviction.
Julius Olsson RA NEAC PROI RBA RWA, 1864–1942
3. Gulls at Low Water, Carbis Bay, Cornwall oil on canvas 61 x 77 cms 24 x 30 3⁄8 ins signed lower left
In 1895, Julius Olsson turned his St Ives studio on Porthmeor beach into the School of Landscape and Marine Painting, where he taught alongside Louis Grier and later, Algernon Talmage. The school’s reputation soon attracted budding marine painters throughout England and beyond, including Australian artist, Richard Hayley Lever. Olsson’s personal love of the sea came partly from his experience as a yachtsman. As The Studio Magazine once commented, ‘[Olssen] knows the way from the Scillies to the Isle of Wight as most men know their way to the nearest railway station.’
Olsson generally worked out the composition and tonal key of his seascapes en plein air, before refining them back in his studio. He painted mostly in oils, but also made watercolours and his work was always delicately balanced between the Realist tradition, as exemplified in the seascapes of Gustave Courbet, and the colouristic and tonal innovations of the Impressionists, above all Claude Monet.
Julius Olsson RA NEAC PROI RBA RWA, 1864–1942
4. Summer Morning, Co. Down, 1932
oil on canvas 62 x 76 cms 24 1⁄4 x 29 7⁄8 ins signed lower left; inscribed with title on old label on reverse
Frank Gascoigne Heath, 1873–1936 5. The Broken Melody, 1906
oil on canvas 50 x 39 cms 19 5⁄8 x 15 1⁄4 ins signed lower left
Part of the second-generation Newlyn School, Frank Heath lived and worked at Lamorna. Previously, he trained in London, Antwerp, at Herkomer’s Bushey School, painted in Brittany, and lived variously at Paul, Newlyn and Polperro. He exhibited his first work at the Royal Academy in 1904 and, apart from the interruption of WWI, when he served with the Royal Fusiliers, he continued to paint and exhibit regularly at the RA, with the St Ives Society of Artists, and at the Paris Salon. His later, sunlit scenes of Cornish life earned him the nickname, “the sunshine artist”, but The Broken Melody retains the strong influence of Stanhope Forbes and the Antwerp School, and was perhaps influenced specifically by Forbes’s The Village Philharmonic (1888, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery). Although undated, The Broken Melody fits stylistically between local genre subjects, including Whiffing (c. 1907) and more tenebrist works like Plucking Geese (c. 1910, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney).
Albert Edward Jackson 1873–1952
6. The Bridge, 1919
oil on canvas 122 x 137 cms 48 x 54 ins signed and dated lower right
Now best known as an illustrator, Albert Edward Jackson was born in Kentish Town, the son of a Birmingham draper. He trained at Camden Art College, and exhibited his first work at the Royal Academy in 1901, but had worked years before as a magazine illustrator. The peak of his career was undoubtedly between 1910 and 1920, when his work brought to life editions of Robinson Crusoe, Gulliver’s Travels, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, and perhaps the definitive edition of The Water Babies. He was also an accomplished miniaturist and painter of genre scenes, which, like this atmospheric scene of a couple on a bridge, show his distinct command of tone and taste for complex, even idiosyncratic compositions.
Edward Wilkins Waite RBA, 1854–1924 7. Reposing in Decay Serene, 1902 oil on canvas 152 x 123 cms 60 x 481⁄2 ins signed lower left
Born in Surrey, Edward Wilkins Waite was the most renowned figure to emerge from a local artistic dynasty (his father, grandfather and three brothers were all artists of various accomplishment). After schooling, and a brief period as a lumberjack in Canada, he returned to England, and began to exhibit at the Royal Academy as early as 1878. He made his name along Helen Allingham, Myles Birket Foster and Benjamin Williams Leader painting landscapes and genre scenes, usually set in Surrey and poetically titled. Although he also worked in the West Country, at St Ives and in the Lake District, he usually painted around Guildford and Dorking, an area that amidst rapid modernization, nevertheless still appeared idyllically rural.
Frederick William Watts 1800–1862 8. On the Stour, Dedham Lock oil on canvas 67 x 109 cms 26 1⁄2 x 43 ins
Watts travelled throughout England and Wales, but spent much of his career in Hampstead. Constable also lived in Hampstead off and on from about 1819, but there is no evidence the two artists ever met. So it is remarkable that Watts developed a style and technique so similar, that from about 1830, his work was often mistaken for Constable’s. Watts’s letters describe how, like Constable, he made studies en
plein air he then refined in the studio into more finished landscapes. Moreover, he clearly adopted elements of Constable’s style and even painted the same locales. However, Watts used quite different brushwork and palettes that were more obviously inspired by late seventeenth-century Dutch painters, such as Meindert Hobbema.
Lionel Townsend Crawshaw RSW RBSA, 1864–1949 9. Summer Holidays, Whitby, 1920
oil on canvas 50 x 64 cms 191⁄2 x 251⁄4 ins signed lower right; inscribed on a label, and twice on the frame verso
Lionel Townsend Crawshaw began his formal training in 1889 at the academies in Dusseldorf and Karlsruhe, and in Paris at the Académie Colarossi. He also travelled throughout Germany, and in some respects his style retains something of this country’s decorative tradition. Above all, however, he remained a northern painter in a very English sense. In 1903, he moved to Whitby and lived there off and
on for nearly forty years, dividing his time between his studio-home in Doncaster, where he painted the present picture, and later, Edinburgh. This particular scene of children playing on the beach by a quay is undated, but is possibly contemporary with two works in Whitby’s Pannett Art Gallery: Whitby Old Bridge (c. 1920) and Hauling Cobles, Runswick Bay (c. 1930).
Edmund G. Fuller RBA RWA, fl. 1893–1904 10.  Offloading the Catch oil on canvas 61 x 92 cms 24 x 36 ins signed lower left
After making a name for himself in Birmingham as a painter and metalwork designer, Fuller moved to St Ives in 1892, where he soon became a key member of the St Ives Arts Club, and exhibited regularly out of his local studio. By 1927, however, he and a group of artists broke away from the St Ives Arts Club to form the St Ives Society of Artists. He continued throughout to exhibit at the Royal Academy and with the Royal Society of British Artists, as well as in Birmingham and at the Dudley Gallery.
Briton Rivière RA, 1840–1920 11. To the Hills, 1901
oil on canvas 112 x 163 cms 44 1⁄8 x 64 1⁄8 ins signed and dated lower left, signed and inscribed with title on label verso
Of Huguenot extraction, Breton Rivière was enormously popular with Victorian audiences for his anecdotal subjects, often featuring dogs. He had a superb command of composition and technique, and also painted historical subjects and portraits, but his animal scenes were his most successful works. Rivière often said that one could only paint dogs if
one respected their differences and in the present picture, the sheepdogs (and not the shepherd) are clearly the focus. He contrasted the man’s bent, static pose with the dogs, leaping like fish amidst the heather at the joy of seeing their master and sharing with him the freedom of the moors.
Fred Hall NEAC, 1860–1948 12. Two Horses in the Shade oil on canvas 96 x 122 cms 373⁄4 x 48 ins signed lower right
Fred Hall was born in Yorkshire and studied at the Lincoln School of Art before continuing his training in Antwerp, where he met Sir Frank Brangwyn and Walter Longsdail. They encouraged him to go to Newlyn, where he began to explore plein-air painting alongside Stanhope Forbes, Frank Bramley and others. From the 1890s, he spent less time in Newlyn and painted around Porlock on the Somerset coast, and then Speen, near Newbury. Most of his pictures from this later, mature period are animal or genre subjects in which he examined light and colour harmonies.
Herbert Davis Richter RBA RI ROI RSW, 1874–1955 13. The Golden Witch Bowl, 1943
oil on canvas 65 x 76 cms 251⁄2 x 30 ins signed lower right; signed with initials and dated verso
Herbert Davis Richter became a painter relatively late in his career, having worked in Bath as chief designer and architect at his brother’s firm. He first studied painting at Lambeth before transferring to the London School of Art, where he trained under John Swann and Sir Frank Brangwyn. In 1906, he began to exhibit his elegant interior studies and still lifes at the Royal Academy and the Royal Society of British Artists, and later had solo shows with the Brook Street Gallery and the Leicester Gallery. The focus of the present still life is a ‘witch ball’, a silvered glass sphere, so named because witches could be snared by their own reflections. (These objects were more likely based on traditional fishing floats.) Richter owned several ‘witch balls’ and incorporated them into his compositions to often virtuoso effect, as in this work where the ball reflects a cursory self-portrait.
Leonard Campbell Taylor RA ROI RP, 1874–1969 14. The Lady of the Castle, 1910
oil on canvas 109 x 94 cms 427⁄8 x 37 ins signed lower right
Leonard Campbell Taylor trained at the Ruskin School of Art, St John’s Wood Art School, and the Royal Academy, but never developed an affinity for drawing, which is ironic, since he started out as illustrator. His graphic background later proved an advantage when he was able to reproduce some of his most successful works, including The Lady of the Castle and The Rehearsal (1907, Tate Britain) as prints, increasing his income and reputation. Following their success, Taylor painted similar works well into the 1950s, and often gave his pictures literary titles, like that of the present work, which comes from Arthurian legend. One of Taylor’s more acclaimed works, the picture was exhibited at the RA, in Rome, Liverpool and at the Paris Salon, where it won the bronze medal, and was formerly in the collection of William Vestey, 1st Baron Vestey (1859–1940).
Wilfrid Gabriel de Glehn RA NEAC, 1870–1951 15. Bretagne, France
oil on canvas 53 x 65 cms 21 x 251⁄2 ins signed lower left
Wilfrid de Glehn often painted in Brittany, sometimes stopping en route to Paris or to visit his Monod cousins in Normandy. The subdued palette and relatively tight handling are typical of his early style, which still retained traces of symbolism. Moreover, he signed
the work using the original ‘von’, which, in 1917, his family replaced with ‘de’ to avoid the wave of antiGerman sentiment that followed WWI. He probably painted the picture en plein air, and inscribed it: ‘À ma chére André Souvenire de Bretagné’.
George Henry RSA RA RSW, c 1858–1943 16. Ready for the Theatre
oil on canvas 127 x 102 cms 50 1⁄8 x 40 1⁄8 ins signed lower right
George Henry’s model Alice Perry also posed for Poinsettia (1904) and The Blue Gown (1906), contemporary works that were also painted in his Chelsea studio. After training in Glasgow, Henry travelled to Japan with E.A. Hornel, sponsored by Alexander Reid. The simple, planar composition of Waiting for the Theatre, its rich colour, flattened perspective and profile pose was inspired partly by Japanese prints, but also by Henry’s admiration of Whistler. After 1906, he increasingly concentrated upon portraiture, although his work was noted more for technique than characterisation or subtlety. He became a founding member of the Chelsea Arts Club, and several of his most celebrated portraits are now in important public collections. The Black Hat, considered to be his finest work, was recently included in Modern Britain, an exhibition organised at The National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne.
Sir James Jebusa Shannon RA PRBA NEAC, 1862–1923 17. The Merman and the Maid, 1898
oil on canvas 86 x 112 cms 34 x 44 ins indistinctly signed lower left; further signed and inscribed verso
Exhibited in London and Pittsburgh, Sir James Jeshuba Shannon possibly based his achingly romantic painting on the Danish legend Ellida and the Merman, which inspired contemporary works by alternately, Henrik Ibsen, H. G. Wells and Oscar Wilde (the last possibly reflecting anxiety about
feeling caught between two worlds). Shannon could reasonably assume well-read Victorians would understand his subject, based on remarkably popular works by Matthew Arnold and of course, Hans Christian Anderson.
Wilfrid Gabriel de Glehn RA NEAC, 1870–1951 18. Battersea Bridge, Looking West oil on canvas 71 x 89 cms 28 x 35 ins
In 1904, shortly after returning from their extended honeymoon, Wilfrid and Jane de Glehn bought an art nouveau house on 73 Cheyne Walk, where their neighbours included Sargent, Wilson Steer and Tonks. The view from the uppermost storey afforded outstanding views of the Thames and Wilfrid repeatedly painted this stretch of the river known as Whistler’s Reach in all its variations of light and
season. This late afternoon view of Battersea Bridge, looking westward, includes an impressionistic study of Lots Road Power Station, which was built in 1904 to provide additional electricity to power the London Underground. De Glehn exhibited similar Thameside views as early as 1908, but the present picture relates to a painting shown at Barbizon House in 1930 and more likely dates to the 1920s.
Adrian Scott Stokes RA VPRWS, 1854–1935
19. Lake Locarno, 1920
oil on canvas 64 x 81 cms 251⁄4 x 313⁄4 ins signed lower left
This view of Locarno is related to Lago Maggiore, a similarly sized picture, which Stokes submitted to the Royal Academy in 1920 as his diploma work, and is now in their permanent collection. The present work was likewise painted in Italy and illustrates Stoke’s mature style, one he developed largely through colour and progressed from naturalism towards decorative abstraction. He particularly liked painting autumnal landscapes, which invited contrasts between golden foliage and the intense blues of lakes and mountains. The picture’s delicate design, simple composition and low horizon also reflect Stokes’s interest in Japanese prints, which he had first seen in Whistler’s studio.
Mia Arnesby Brown 1866–1931 20. Child with Daisies oil on canvas 62 x 51 cms 24 1⁄4 x 20 1⁄4 ins signed lower left
The wife of Sir John Alfred Arnesby Brown, Mia Edwards was born in Monmouthshire and trained with Hubert von Herkomer at Bushey. In 1894, She exhibited her work at the Nottingham Castle Exhibition of Cornish Painters and, like Marianne Stokes and Elizabeth Forbes, she excelled at painting children. She exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy, the Goupil Gallery and with the Society of Women Artists.
George Leslie Hunter 1877–1931 21. Still Life with Fruit, a Rose and a Pink Vase, 1925 oil on prepared board 69 x 51 cms 271⁄8 x 20 1⁄8 ins signed upper left
Leslie Hunter’s family moved from Rothesay to California in 1892, and when they moved back to Scotland, Hunter remained in San Francisco until the 1906 earthquake compelled his return. As early as 1908, Hunter may have seen works by Cézanne and Matisse, who remained his strongest influence. He also drew on the work of Kalf and Chardin for his still lifes, but his bold impasto and fauvist colour reimagined this very traditional genre. He begun to paint still lifes before WWI, when he worked on his uncle’s farm in Larkhall. Around this time he met Alexander Reid, who gave Hunter his first solo show in Glasgow, and helped introduce him to William McInnes, William McNair and Ion Harrison. Travels throughout France and Italy, sponsored by T.J. Honeyman and others, further refined his technique and eye for the post-moderne, and in 1923, he, Samuel Peploe and Francis Boileau Cadell exhibited at the Leicester Galleries as ‘Three Scottish Colourists’. Two years later in Paris, Fergusson joined their ranks. But while the French exhibition furthered their reputations, Hunter’s own work, while admired, remained somewhat overlooked. He became depressed and anxious, and looked to France as a haven from the London and Glasgow art markets. On one Paris trip, he saw Matisse’s Pink Tablecloth, which McInnes promptly brought back to Glasgow. It became one of Hunter’s favourite pictures and possibly inspired this still life, which he probably painted around 1925. In the later 1920s, when Hunter moved to the South of France, he used brighter palettes and thinner brushwork that revealed his often un-primed supports.
William Bowyer RA PP NEAC RP RWS, 1926–2015 22. Studio Still Life, 1992
oil on board 76 x 50 cms 29 7⁄8 x 19 5⁄8 ins signed lower right
William Bowyer trained as an artist at night while working by day in a Staffordshire coal mine as a “Bevin Boy”. His tutors at the RCA included Ruskin Spear and Carel Weight—mentors who went on to become life-long friends. His work was utterly direct and personal, and as fellow Royal Academician Ken Howard once said: “The content of his pictures is Bowyer’s life, whether it be his beloved river at Hammersmith, Walberswick in Suffolk … his friends and family … or his lifelong love of cricket. Bowyer’s work communicates with us directly. It gives us a way of seeing the world and, above all, it is life enhancing.”
Dame Laura Knight DBE RA RWS, 1877–1970 23. On the Hill Top, 1939
oil on canvas 64 x 76 cms 25 x 29 7⁄8 ins signed lower right
Just before WWII, Laura and Harold Knight lived at Malvern, where, throughout the 1930s, they formed a circle of writers, musicians and artists that gathered each summer for Barry Jackson’s Malvern Festival, working out of the Mount Pleasant Hotel and the Park Hotel in nearby Colwall, just inside the Herefordshire border. Festival visitors often amused themselves by taking donkey rides over the Malvern Hills, renting the
animals from local eccentrics like Alice Betteridge, whom Knight included in this panoramic view from the hills looking towards Wales. Knight was particularly fond of Betteridge’s pony, Kitty, which she also included here. John Croft, FCA, the artist’s great-nephew, will include this work in his forthcoming catalogue raisonné of Dame Laura Knight.
John Wright Oakes 1820–1887 24. Hazy Morning at Heysham, Lancashire, 1869 oil on canvas 76 x 103 cms 29 7⁄8 x 40 1⁄2 ins signed and dated lower left
John Wright Oakes is best known as a landscape painter, and his earlier pictures, which he exhibited at the Liverpool Academy from 1839, were distinctly Pre-Raphaelite in style. In 1859, he moved to London where he joined the Hogarth Club, but as the popularity of the Pre-Raphaelites waned, Oakes shifted his style towards the epic naturalism of
contemporaries like Benjamin Williams Leader and George Vicat Cole. Before he moved to London, Oakes often painted views around Liverpool, North Wales and Cheshire, but this view of the Lancashire coastal village of Heysham actually dates to later in his career.
Thomas Luny 1759–1837 25. Unloading the Catch, 1829 oil on canvas 51 x 71 cms 20 x 28 ins signed and dated
When Thomas Luny moved to Teignmouth in 1807, this Devon fishing port had become a fashionable Georgian tourist spot, with artists and writers travelling to enjoy the fresh air and stunning views. He built Luny House where he painted coastal landscapes, shipping scenes, and naval subjects, which he sold for as much as £25. Though later wracked by arthritis, Luny continued to paint. He had servants carry him, his equipment and a wheelchair to the beach, where he painted the present work. This local scene of fisherfolk unloading their catch at day’s end illustrates several reasons Luny was so successful, including his command of light, natural and narrative detail, and shipwright’s eye, which he honed as an apprentice with Francis Holman.
Thomas Whitcombe 1752–1824 26. A Flagship of the Blue Squadron and a Merchantman in the Channel off Dover, 1807 oil on canvas 91 x 152 cms 36 x 60 ins signed and dated lower right
Although Thomas Whitcombe spent most of his career in London, his atmospheric maritime studies hint at some direct knowledge of seafaring. Between 1783 and 1824, he exhibited almost exclusively at the Royal Academy and became known as one of these foremost maritime painters throughout the period of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. His reputation was such that James Jenkins
even commissioned him to create paintings to be engraved for his volume The Naval Achievements of Great Britain, which was published in 1817. Important works by Whitcombe are in The Art Institute of Chicago, the Indianapolis Museum of Art, in the National Maritime Museum and Tate Britain.
Thomas Sewell Robins 1809–1880 27. Ships at Spithead, 1835
watercolour heightened with white 77 x 114 cms 30 3⁄8 x 44 7⁄8 ins
In 1829, Thomas Sewell Robins entered the Royal Academy Schools, where Turner was his lecturer in perspective. Chiefly remembered for his watercolour yachting scenes, he lived in London, but travelled throughout the Mediterranean (1850); The Netherlands and The Rhineland (1857); and to France (1858) and Antwerp (1860). Robins painted the present work in 1835, and exhibited it
at the RA. These early large watercolours reflect the contemporary fashion for ‘exhibition’ pictures in the medium and often featured ambitious compositions and complex details. Robins’s monumental watercolours include The Storm (1843), Off Shearness (1852) and Calais Harbour (1852), and others in the National Maritime Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery.
Joseph Heard 1799–1859 28. The Liverpool Barque John Tomkinson, Inward-Bound in Tow, 1840
oil on canvas 72 x 92 cms 28 3⁄8 x 36 1⁄4 ins signed and dated lower left
By emphasising details such as the light vessel in the left foreground and the ‘pilot jack’ at the fore masthead, Joseph Heard painted both a portrait of the John Tompkinson, and a record of her captain’s exceptional seamanship. The light vessel marks the location as Formby Point, just north of Liverpool, a particularly challenging, if not hazardous, spot on the harbour approach. The ‘pilot jack’ indicates the barque’s request for a pilot, and according to Dr
Sam Davidson, who examined the picture, the fact that this request was made so late on the approach, suggests a bold and experienced captain. At left, the barque is depicted from the stern under reduced sail and ‘hove to’ having changed tack to board her pilot. Built in 1840 for Rimmer & Co., Liverpool, the John Tompkinson sailed to Hobart and the West Indies, but her last entry in Lloyd’s Registers was 1856.
Miles Walters 1773–1855 29. The Brig ‘Betsy Sofia’ of London in two positions off Dover, 1822 oil on canvas 71 x 124 cms 28 x 48 7⁄8 ins signed and dated lower right
Founder of a Liverpool painting dynasty, Miles Walters worked as a shipwright at Bideford before moving to London and then Liverpool. Dated to 1822, this broadside portrait of the brig Betsy Sofia off Dover is one of his rare signed works, and was probably painted on the south coast. After he settled in Liverpool, he worked with his son, Samuel Walters and thereafter signed his paintings ‘Walters & Son’. Before steamships, brigs were the fastest, most manoeuvrable and adaptable ships on the high
seas, and Walters excelled at multi-viewpoint ship portraits, often commissioned by shipbuilders or shipping companies. He painted the Betsy Sofia, first, signalling for a pilot, and then again, having increased sail. His focus on this action, and his inclusion of details like the brig’s copper sheathing below the water line, suggest the shipping company she served may have commissioned the picture.
John Northcote Nash RA NEAC, 1893–1977
30. The Woodpile, 1962
oil on board 50 x 61 cms 191⁄2 x 24 ins signed lower left
Informally trained as a painter, John Nash nevertheless excelled at watercolour and was an innovative draughtsman and printmaker. Both his love of the natural world, and his experiences in the trenches of WWI influenced his distinctive approach to landscape, which, as a genre, was by then largely seen as retrograde. Throughout the 1930s, he painted and sketched his way through much of East Anglia and Essex, and later lived at Bottengoms Farmhouse, near Wormingford. Although he continued to teach at the Royal College of Art, and became a Royal Academician, he was uninterested in the politics of the London art world, and remained in the Stour Valley, a region Sickert declared, “sucked dry” by Gainsborough and Constable. But Nash continued to find inspiration there, and even taught plant illustration from the mill once owned by Constable’s family.
Mary Potter 1900–1981
31. Essex, Winter
oil on canvas 64 x 76 cms 251⁄4 x 29 7⁄8 ins
Mary Potter studied at the Slade with Henry Tonks and Philip Wilson Steer, and was involved with the New English Art Club, the London Group and the Seven and Five Society. She embraced every genre, save portraiture, and her naïve style, marked by subtle colour and emotion, was informed variously by Paul Klee, Eastern art and philosophy, children’s drawings, and even graffiti. Between 1946 and 1951, she lived between London and Aldeburgh, but during the winters, she often retreated from the icy tension of the urban life for Brighton and Essex, where she particularly enjoyed painting the surrounding landscapes. Another of Potter’s wintery Essex landscapes, dated to around 1944, is in the collection of the Graves Art Gallery, Sheffield.
Dod Procter RA NEAC, 1891–1972 32. The Tall Girl, 1929
oil on canvas 152 x 76 cms 59 7⁄8 x 29 7⁄8 ins signed lower right
Painted at the peak of her career, Dod Proctor’s arresting image of early adolescence combines pathos and true objectivity. Commissioned as a pair (the second painting is now lost) meant to flank the entry to a dining room, until the 1970s, the paintings remained in with the original collector, although it is not clear where they were actually displayed. Proctor used the same model for both pictures, Dolly Symonds, a local girl who lived behind the Queen’s Hotel in Penzance. Three years before, Morning (1926, Tate Britain) made Proctor’s name as a modern classicist along the lines of Dobson, Gill and Roberts. But The Tall Girl showed an objective sensuality more commonly found in German and Austrian art, and it is perhaps not coincidental that Proctor’s narrow, upright composition, while useful for decorative wall panels, is also typical of altarpiece doors by Dürer, Cranach and Memling.
Mary Newcomb 1922–2008 33. The Golden Leaf, 1953 oil on board 81 x 53 cms 32 x 21 ins signed and dated lower right; inscribed with title on label verso
Painted in October of 1953, The Golden Leaf is both a metaphysical landscape and a self-portrait, and like much of Mary Newcomb’s work, illustrates how deeply the Norwich countryside informed her imagination. Famed East Anglian writer and Newcomb’s close friend, Roland Blythe described her as a visionary in that she caught “things which no one else saw... She brought something so simple to painting that no one had really seen before... When you look at them, you think, ‘Why didn’t I notice that before?’”
Edward Le Bas CBE RA LG NS ARCA, 1904–1966
34. The Palace Pier, Brighton, 1949
oil on board 48 x 69 cms 19 x 271⁄8 ins signed l.r.; and signed and numbered, verso
Brighton’s Palace Pier was one of Edward Le Bas’s favourite subjects, although few examples have become available to the market. The location probably appealed to his fascination with colour and form, but here, the focus on human energy and activity is unusual in his work. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, he painted several café society interiors, using a style that combined Bonnard’s attention to surface pattern with the sensitive social observation of Degas. But in his cityscapes, including Brighton, Le Bas tended to keep figures to a minimum, and even then largely in stasis. In this work, however, he deliberately added a sense of movement and energy through diagonal interplays of colour, such as the correspondence of the child’s yellow hair at lower left with the gilded finials on the Pier.
William Brooker 1918–1983
35. The Music Lesson, 1953
oil on board 41 x 51 cms 16 x 20 1⁄8 ins signed and dated lower right
Following service during WWII, William Brooker trained at Chelsea and Goldsmiths, and became one of the more influential teachers of the post-war era. He probably painted this study of children at music practice between 1949 and 1953, when his taught at Bath Academy of Art in Corsham and one of his pupils, Howard Hodgkin, described him as “...the only real teacher I ever had.” His early pictures sit comfortably within the broad framework of English anecdotal impressionism, and Andrew Graham-Dixon argued in his 1999 survey of British art that Brooker’s return to pictorial realism gave post-war Britain back ‘a part of their own temperament’.
Edward Piper 1938–1990 36. Silhouetted Nude before Window oil on canvas 91 x 71 cms 35 7⁄8 x 28 ins
The elder son of John and Myfanwy Piper, Edward Piper studied at the Bath Academy of Art, Corsham and the Slade, but never embraced formalism or formal technique. Instead, he favoured improvisation and often worked in media that demand speed, such as watercolour, inks and wet paper. His core inspirations were French art, jazz music and above all, the female nude. He was known to be remarkably spontaneous about how he formed his images, and often only decided what materials to use as he arranged and lighted his model. It is precisely this sense of improvisation that gives his work its freedom and energy.
Dominic Welch b. 1970 37. Embryonic Form IV
carrara marble 45 x 51 x 10 cms 177⁄8 x 20 1⁄8 x 3 7⁄8 ins
Dominic Welch trained under Peter Randall-Page, and his sculptures are deeply informed by both Randall-Page’s sense of geometry and the boldly distilled forms of Constantin Brancusi. Above all, his sense of form is rooted in nature, inspired equally by the organic logic of seeds, pods, shells and fish, and the inherent crystalline properties of his chosen stone.
Jake Attree b. 1950 38. Baile Hill
oil on panel 55 x 39 cms 215⁄8 x 15 3⁄8 ins
While topographically accurate, Jake Attree’s sculptural oils are more poetic than documentary, and often hint at the inner life of his native York and its people. His dramatic impasto and bold forms are both confrontational and deeply compelling, creating images that seem frozen in time, hinting at the stories behind the surface. After beginning his studies in York, Attree trained at Liverpool College of Art and the Royal Academy. He now has a studio at Dean Clough in Halifax, an enormous mill complex that once housed Crossley Carpets.
Born in Dublin, Frank Phelan worked and trained in Canada before moving to London around 1959. He found work as a stagehand and his theatre contacts introduced him to Nancy Wynne-Jones, who encouraged him to paint in Cornwall. Phelan soon became acquainted with Roger Hilton, Bryan Wynter, Patrick Heron and Conor Fallon, and was particularly inspired by Peter Lanyon’s work. He spent most of the 1960s painting between Cornwall and London and Richard Demarco organised several solo shows of his work in Glasgow and Edinburgh. His paintings are now in private collections in England, Ireland, France, the United States, as well as in State Collection of Ireland (OPW) and the Cork Institute of Technology & Arts.
Frank Phelan b. 1932 39. Geometric I, 2010
charcoal and acrylic on canvas 97 x 126 cms 38 x 49 5⁄8 ins
Kurt Jackson b. 1961 40. Stream Rush and Chaffinch and Willow Warbler Song, 2014 mixed media on wood panel 62 x 64 cms 24 3⁄8 x 251⁄4 ins
Before he became a painter, Kurt Jackson read zoology at Oxford, where he graduated from St Peter’s College in 1983 and studied at Ruskin College of Art. In addition to painting, he is a dedicated environmental activist and last year opened the Jackson Foundation Gallery in St Just, which exhibits his work in collaboration with national and locally based NGOs and environmental charities.
Peter Brown ROI PS NEAC, b.1967 41. Westminster Abbey, The East Gate (Rain), 2014 oil on canvas 89 x 76 cms 35 x 30 ins
Peter Brown first became aware of urban architecture and how it affects us in Bath, where he studied during the 1980s. After graduating from Manchester Polytechnic, he returned there and took up street painting in earnest. Brown and his easel are now a regular sight in both Bath and London, and he has painted Cardiff, Dublin, Edinburgh, Paris, Barcelona, the cities of Rajasthan, and throughout Cornwall, Brittany and the South Coast. In his own words: “I work entirely from life using the cities and the countryside as my subjects… a certain play of the light, weather, space and everyday life.”
CDXVII
ISBN 978-1-910993-09-5 Publication No: CDXVII Published by David Messum Fine Art Š David Messum Fine Art
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