Montague Dawson: ‘Amateur Yachtswomen’

100 Montague Dawson: ‘Amateur Yachtswomen’

Height: 16¼in (41.5cm) Width: 25¾in (65.5cm) Framed Height: 24¾in (63cm) Width: 30½in (77.5cm)

This charming gouache on paper shows a dayboat with a triangular blue pennant painted on her bow and flying two burgees. She is sailing in a fresh breeze with two women in the cockpit, one helming with an unusual rudder-yoke tiller with port and starboard ropes coming over her shoulders, and a man in white holding the shrouds by the mast, signed Montague Dawson. Framed with a cutout title in the mount stating ‘Montague Dawson’ and two pencilled notes on the reverse ‘8077, 7660 Amateur Yachtswomen’ and ‘Mr W H ??, Bank of Commerce Bldg, Windsor, Ontario, Transport to .. picture, £,1,309, Name plate, Deliver sure 10th October’. English, circa 1930. Montague Dawson RMSA, FRSA (1890–1973) was the son of a keen yachtsman and the grandson of the marine painter Henry Dawson (1811–1878). He served in the Dazzle Painting Section at Leith in WWI and 1924 was the official artist for an Expedition to the South Seas by the steam yacht St. George. He was present at the final surrender of the German High Seas Fleet and many of his illustrations depicting the event were published in The Sphere. After the war, Dawson established himself as a professional marine artist, concentrating on historical subjects and portraits of deep-water sailing ships often in a stiff breeze or on high seas. During WWII he was once again employed as a war artist and again worked for The Sphere. He exhibited regularly at the Royal Society of Marine Artists, of which he became a member, from 1946 to 1964, and occasionally at the Royal Academy between 1917 and 1936. He was considered one of the greatest living marine artists, whose patrons included two American Presidents, Dwight Eisenhower and Lyndon Johnson, as well as the British Royal Family. A further painting by Montague Dawson is featured on the following pages.