11 Classic Works of Art, Marine Paintings - With Footnotes, #43

Montague Dawson, RMSA, FRSA (1890–1973)

Heave To - A Baltimore Clipper in Action with a Coasting Slaver

oil on canvas

28 x 42 in. (71.1 x 106.7 cm.)

Private collection

Baltimore Clipper is the colloquial name for fast sailing ships built on the mid-Atlantic seaboard of the United States of America, especially at the port of Baltimore, Maryland. The name is most commonly applied to two-masted schooners and brigantines. More on Baltimore Clipper

The coastwise slave trade referred to the domestic slave trade in the United States that shipped slaves by water from the Upper South to major markets, especially New Orleans.

Montague Dawson RMSA, FRSA (1890–1973) was a British painter who was renowned as a maritime artist. His most famous paintings depict sailing ships, usually clippers or warships of the 18th and 19th centuries. Montague was the son of a keen yachtsman and the grandson of the marine painter Henry Dawson (1811–1878), born in Chiswick, London. Much of his childhood was spent on Southampton Water where he was able to indulge his interest in the study of ships. For a brief period around 1910 Dawson worked for a commercial art studio in Bedford Row, London, but with the outbreak of the First World War he joined the Royal Navy. Whilst serving with the Navy in Falmouth he met Charles Napier Hemy (1841–1917), who considerably influenced his work. In 1924 Dawson was the official artist for an Expedition to the South Seas by the steam yacht St.George. During the expedition he provided illustrated reports to the Graphic magazine.

After the War, Dawson established himself as a professional marine artist, concentrating on historical subjects and portraits of deep-water sailing ships. During the Second World War, he was employed as a war artist. Dawson 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. By the 1930s he was considered one of the greatest living marine artists, whose patrons included two American Presidents, Dwight D Eisenhower and Lyndon B Johnson, as well as the British Royal Family. Also in the 1930s, he moved to Milford-Upon-Sea in Hampshire, living there for many years. Dawson is noted for the strict accuracy in the nautical detail of his paintings which often sell for six figures.

The work of Montague Dawson is represented in the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich and the Royal Naval Museum, Portsmouth. More on Montague Dawson

Thomas Bush Hardy, 1842 - 1897

Sailing ships at sea

Oil on canvas

51 x 76 cm

Private collection

Thomas Bush Hardy (1842, Sheffield – 1897, Maida Vale, London) was a British marine painter and watercolourist. As a young man he travelled in the Netherlands and Italy. In 1884 Hardy was elected a Member of the Royal Society of British Artists. He exhibited with the Society and also at the Royal Academy.

His paintings feature coastal scenes in England and the Netherlands, the French Channel ports and the Venetian Lagoon.

Hardy had nine children. His son Dudley Hardy was a painter, illustrator and poster designer. His daughter Dorothy received an MBE after working as a nurse in the First World War. He died on 15 December 1897 in Maida Vale, London. More on Thomas Bush Hardy

Thomas Buttersworth, (5 May 1768 – November 1842)

Mersey River Scene With Lighthouse

oil on canvas

17" x 21"

Private collection

The River Mersey is a river in the North West of England. Its name is derived from the Anglo-Saxon language and translates as "boundary river". The river may have been the border between the ancient kingdoms of Mercia and Northumbria and for centuries it formed part of the boundary between the historic counties of Lancashire and Cheshire. More on The River Mersey

Thomas Buttersworth (5 May 1768 – November 1842) was an English seaman of the Napoleonic wars period who became a marine painter. He produced works to commission, and was little exhibited during his lifetime.

Butterworth was born on the Isle of Wight. He enlisted in the Royal Navy in London in 1795, and served on HMS Caroline during the wars with France, before being invalided home from Minorca in 1800.

The National Maritime Museum in London has 27 watercolours by him, several of which are mounted on sheets from 18th century printed signal and muster books. He went on to paint numerous naval battle scenes and pictures such as the ‘'Inshore Squadron off Cadiz in 1797'’ which are thought to show scenes he witnessed. On being appointed Marine Painter to the East India Company he painted ship portraits on commission. It had been thought that he died in 1830, but recent research has found that he painted Queen Victoria’s visit to Edinburgh in 1842 before he died in London later that year. More Thomas Buttersworth 

Lyonel Charles Feininger, (July 17, 1871 – January 13, 1956) 

Harbor with Lighthouse

watercolor and pen

9 1/2 x 14 in (24.1 x 35.6 cm)

Private collection

Lyonel Charles Feininger (July 17, 1871 – January 13, 1956) was a German-American painter, and a leading exponent of Expressionism. He also worked as a caricaturist and comic strip artist. He was born and grew up in New York City, traveling to Germany at 16 to study and perfect his art. He started his career as a cartoonist in 1894 and met with much success in this area. He was also a commercial caricaturist for 20 years for magazines and newspapers in the USA and Germany. At the age of 36, he started to work as a fine artist. He also produced a large body of photographic works between 1928 and the mid 1950s, but he kept these primarily within his circle of friends. He was also a pianist and composer, with several piano compositions and fugues for organ extant. More on Lyonel Charles Feininger

Arthur Melville, A.R.S.A., R.S.W. A.R.S., 1858-1904

A SPANISH FISHING VILLAGE, THE HARBOUR AT PUERTA DE PASAJES

Watercolour

51 by 61cm., 20 by 24in.

Private collection

Melville loved the glimmering white sunlight of Spain, refracted from water, white-washed walls and red-tiled roofs. He visited Spain throughout his career, Melville returned to Spain several times and the present watercolour was made in 1897 and exhibited the following year at the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolour. Melville painted at least five oils at Pasajes and several beautiful watercolours. In the 1890s Melville was at the peak of his artistic talent and a master of watercolour painting, adopting a wonderfully energetic use of the medium which is almost Impressionistic in its description of forms and mood. More on this painting

Arthur Melville (1858–1904) was a Scottish painter, best remembered for his Orientalist subjects. He was born in Guthrie, Angus in 1858 and brought up in East Lothian. He attended the Royal Scottish Academy Schools before studying in Paris and Greece. The colour-sense which is so notable a feature of his work developed during his travels in Persia, Egypt and Turkey between 1880 and 1882. To convey strong Middle Eastern light, he developed a technique of using watercolour on a base of wet paper with gouache applied to it.

Melville, little known during his lifetime, was one of the most powerful influences in the contemporary art of his day, especially in his broad decorative treatment with water-colour, which influenced the Glasgow Boys. Though his vivid impressions of color and movement are apparently recorded with feverish haste, they are the result of careful deliberation and selection. He was at his best in his watercolors of Eastern life and colour and his Venetian scenes, but he also painted several striking portraits in oils. More on Arthur Melville

William Lees Judson, (1842 - 1928 Los Angeles, CA)

''Old San Pedro'', boats in a harbor with figures

Oil on canvas

24'' H x 30'' W 

Private collection

Historic Downtown San Pedro, California, has been home to the United States Navy since the Mexican War. On August 6, 1846, Commodore Robert F. Stockton, on the frigate Congress, put ashore the ship's Marines and they captured San Pedro. On August 11, a group of sailors and Marines marched from San Pedro and captured Los Angeles. In 1914, the US Navy placed the first US Submarines on the West Coast at San Pedro and developed a base in San Pedro. In 1919, President Wilson transfered 200 warships to the West Coast. On August 9, 1919, the ships moved north to what would become the new battleship anchorage, The new anchorage was San Pedro, the Port of Los Angeles Harbor, and the Port of Long Beach in San Pedro Bay, California. More on San Pedro

William Lees Judson was born in 1842 in Manchester, England, and moved to the United States with his parents when he was ten years old. After serving four years with the Illinois volunteers during the American Civil War, Judson studied art in New York and Paris. He settled in London, Ontario, where he became a successful portrait painter and art teacher.[He moved to Chicago in 1890 but, suffering from failing health, he moved to Los Angeles in 1893. He settled on the banks of the Arroyo Seco in the Garvanza section of Los Angeles and became part of an influential scene of artists in the Arroyo. Soon after his arrival, Judson was at the forefront of the Arroyo Guild of Craftsmen, a group of artists, sculptors and architects who fueled Southern California’s Arts and Crafts Movement. The beauty of the area stirred Judson to switch from portrait painting to landscapes, and his work attracted such favorable attention that in 1896 he was offered a professorship in drawing and painting at the University of Southern California. In the late 1890s, he founded the Los Angeles College of Fine Arts at his home in Garvanza. He died at his home in the studio building in October 1928. More on William Lees Judson 

Attributed to Edward William Cooke

Fishing and coastal vista looking towards a volcano, possibly Stromboli

Oil on canvas

26x36cm

Private collection

Stromboli is a small island off the north coast of Sicily, containing one of the three active volcanoes in Italy. This name is derived from the Ancient Greek name Strongulē which was given to it because of its round swelling form. The volcano has erupted many times and is constantly active with minor eruptions, often visible from many points on the island and from the surrounding sea, giving rise to the island's nickname "Lighthouse of the Mediterranean". More on Stromboli

Edward William Cooke, R.A., F.R.S., F.Z.S., F.S.A., F.G.S. (27 March 1811 – 4 January 1880) was an English landscape and marine painter, and gardener. Cooke was born in Pentonville, London. He was raised in the company of artists. He was a precocious draughtsman and a skilled engraver from an early age, displayed an equal preference for marine subjects and published his "Shipping and Craft" – a series of accomplished engravings – when he was 18, in 1829. Cooke began painting in oils in 1833, and first exhibited at the Royal Academy and British Institution in 1835, by which time his style was essentially formed.

He went on to travel and paint with great industry at home and abroad, indulging his love of the 17th-century Dutch marine artists with a visit to the Netherlands in 1837. He returned regularly over the next 23 years, studying the effects of the coastal landscape and light, as well as the works of the country's Old Masters, resulting in highly successful paintings. He went on to travel in Scandinavia, Spain, North Africa and, above all, to Venice. In 1858, he was elected into the National Academy of Design as an Honorary Academician. . More Edward William Cooke

Edward Atkinson Hornel, 1864-1933

CHILDREN FISHING, c. 1893

Oil on canvas

26 by 30.5cm., 10 by 12in.

Private collection

Edward Atkinson Hornel (1864–1933) was a Scottish painter of landscapes, flowers, and foliage, with children. He was born in Australia, of Scottish parents, but was brought up and lived practically all his life in Scotland. He studied for three years at the art school at Edinburgh, and for two years at Antwerp . Returning from Antwerp in 1885, he met George Henry and associated himself with the Glasgow Boys.

Hornel and Henry worked side by side to achieve decorative splendor of color, Hornel boldly and freely employing texture effects produced by loading and scraping, roughening, smoothing, and staining. In 1893–94 the two artists spent a year and a half in Japan, where Hornel learned much about decorative design and spacing. Towards the close of the nineties his colors, while preserving their glow and richness, became more refined and more atmospheric, and his drawing more naturalistic. In 1901 he declined election to the Royal Scottish Academy. A member of Glasgow Art Club, Hornel exhibited in the club's annual exhibitions. More on Edward Atkinson Hornel

Robert Gemmell Hutchison, R.S.A., R.S.W., 1855-1936

A BASKET OF HERRING

Oil on canvas

76 by 63.5 cm., 30 by 25in.

Private collection

Robert Gemmell Hutchison RSA RSW (1855–1936) was a Scottish landscape artist, specialising in coastal scenes. He belongs to the school of British Impressionism.

He was born in Edinburgh on 1 July 1855. He was educated in Edinburgh. After first training as a seal-engraver he was encouraged to pursue oil painting.. He set up his own studio in 1878 and was instantly successful, exhibiting at the Royal Scottish Academy in 1879 and at the Royal Academy in 1881. He shifted quickly from empty seascapes, largely of the Fife coast, to genre paintings, usually of young girls sitting on the coast.


He was elected an associate of the Royal Scottish Academy in 1903 and a full member in 1911. He was also elected to the Royal Society of British Artists, the Royal Institute of Oil Painters and the Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolour. In later life he lived at 14 Craighall Terrace in Musselburgh, east of Edinburgh. He returned to Edinburgh in 1912. In the 1930s he spent time with his daughter at her home in Coldingham, painting at St. Abbs. He died at his daughter’s house on 22 August 1936. More on Robert Gemmell Hutchison

George Gardner Symons, (1863 - 1930 Laguna Beach, CA)

Panoramic coastal seascape

Oil on canvas laid to canvas

10'' H x 20'' W

Private collection

George Gardner Symons (1861-1930) was an American impressionist painter. He was born in either 1861 or 1863 in Chicago, Illinois. Attending the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Symons also studied in Europe and won awards at the National Academy of Design and the Corcoran Gallery of Art. Symons was one of the plein-air painters who built their studios in Laguna Beach, California during the early 1900s. He died in Hillside, New Jersey in 1930. More on George Gardner Symons 

Peter Ellenshaw (1913 - 2007 Santa Barbara, CA)

Rocky coastal, c. 1963

Oil on canvas

25'' H x 50.5'' W

Private collection

William Samuel Cook "Peter" Ellenshaw (May 24, 1913 – February 12, 2007) was an English matte designer and special effects creator who worked on many Disney features. Born in London, he moved to America in 1953.

His first worked in matte painting for producer Alexander Korda on such films as Things to Come (1936), and later on such Powell and Pressburger productions as Black Narcissus (1947) assisting his mentor W. (Walter) Percy Day. A few years later, while still based in Europe, he began to work for Hollywood studios. He worked for MGM on Quo Vadis (1951), but his most extensive association was with Walt Disney Studios beginning with their first completely live action feature film, Treasure Island (1950). He went on to work on 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954) and Mary Poppins (1964), for which he won an Academy Award. He retired after his work on The Black Hole (1979), but contributed matte paintings for Dick Tracy (1990). 

After Peter Ellenshaw retired from the film business, he dedicated his life to his passion for painting. Numerous works were created, of both Disney and non-Disney themed subjects, which have been highly collected. He was named a Disney Legend in 1993. More on Peter Ellenshaw

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