06 Classic Works of Art, Marine Paintings - With Footnotes, #61

Montague Dawson, 1890–1973

UP SHE RISES - THE SHIP NORTH AMERICA

Oil on canvas

28 1/4 x 42 in

Private collection

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

John Cleveley the Elder, SOUTHWARK, LONDON 1712 - 1777

DEPTFORD SHIPYARD, LONDON, c. 1755.

Oil on canvas

50 3/8  by 60 3/4  in.; 128 by 154.2.
Private collection

This painting shows a two-decker – probably of about 64 guns ­– being launched or, more accurately, ‘floated-out’ from the Deptford double dry-dock (which could accommodate two ships end to end). It is flying launching flags, including the fouled anchor of the Admiralty and the Royal Standard. To the right two other ships are under construction on building slips, and a yacht can be seen beyond, moored beside timber sheds in the small Deptford wet dock. The large building at center is the Grand Storehouse (begun in 1712), while at far left is the Master Shipwright's house of 1704, which still stands today. Vessels lying off, in the river, include official barges, a cutter-rigged Admiralty yacht at center, and another two-decker (also of about 64 guns) at far right, riding high since it is not carrying its armament. The identity of the vessel being launched is uncertain and it may be the Kent, the Berwick or the Hampton Court. More on this painting

Deptford Dockyard was an important naval dockyard and base at Deptford on the River Thames, in what is now the London Borough of Lewisham, operated by the Royal Navy from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries. It built and maintained warships for 350 years, and many significant events and ships have been associated with it.

Founded by Henry VIII in 1513, the dockyard was the most significant royal dockyard of the Tudor period and remained one of the principal naval yards for three hundred years. Important new technological and organisational developments were trialled here, and Deptford came to be associated with the great mariners of the time. The yard expanded rapidly throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, encompassing a large area and serving for a time as the headquarters of naval administration, and became the Victualling Board's main depot. Tsar Peter the Great visited the yard officially incognito in 1698 to learn shipbuilding techniques. Reaching its zenith in the eighteenth century, it built and refitted exploration ships used by Cook, Vancouver and Bligh, and warships which fought under Nelson. More on Deptford Dockyard

John Cleveley the Elder (c.1712 – 21 May 1777) , see below

John Cleveley the Elder  (circa 1712 – 1777)

The "Royal George" at Deptford Showing the Launch of "The Cambridge", c. 1757

Oil on canvas

1,219 × 1,879 mm (47.99 × 73.98 in)

National Maritime Museum

A fictitious combination of two events set in Deptford Dockyard in southeast London, England, UK: the launch of the H.M.S. Cambridge (left) in Deptford on 21 October 1755, and the H.M.S. Royal George (right) which was actually launched at Woolwich Dockyard the following year, 1757. More on this painting

John Cleveley the Elder (c.1712 – 21 May 1777) was an English marine artist. Cleveley was born in Southwark. He was not from an artistic background, and his father intended him to follow the family trade of joinery, so he set up as a carpenter or shipwright in around 1742 at the Deptford Dockyard. Continuing his work in that area throughout his life (indeed, he is referred to as ‘carpenter belonging to His Majesty’s Ship Victory, in the pay of His Majesty’s  Navy in letters of administration granted by the Admiralty in 1778 to his widow. From about 1745 he also worked as a painter, mostly ship portraits, dockyard scenes of shipbuilding and launches, and some other marine views. They combined his knowledge of shipbuilding with accurate architectural and topographical detail. Apparently mostly self-taught, it is possible that dockyard ship-painters also gave him some training in this area. He toured East Anglia, and produced some paintings from notes made on that trip. More John Cleveley the Elder

FREDERICK McDUFF (American. 1931-2011)
Beach Scene with Figures
Oil on Canvas
16 1/2" by 26"
Private collection

Frederick H. McDuff, (American, b. 1931), was born in Birmingham, Alabama in 1931, Interest in painting led him to New York City in the 1950’s.  He studied briefly at the Art Students League but found his greatest inspiration in museum masters as Corot and Pissarro.  In the early 1960’s he left New York for Washington, D.C.  In the 1970’s he encountered the abstract painters, for whom he had previously had little interest, and from there he learned to impart a greater clarity and purity to his work.

McDuff is a contemporary Impressionist.  Nature, therefore, plays an important role in what he expresses.  Beach scenes and landscapes bathed in a delicate light and stilled by an ethereal calmness are among his subjects.  A romanticist, McDuff takes us to far away places in time and space.  His is a world devoid of harsh realities, a serene place where gentility is the essence of gracious living. More on Frederick H. McDuff

Pierre-Auguste Renoir, (25 February 1841 – 3 December 1919)

Figures on the Beach, c. 1890

Oil on canvas

20 3/4 x 25 1/4 in. (52.7 x 64.1 cm)

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Probably painted in 1890 on the Cote d’Azur in southern France, this sun-filled painting shows two female figures at the beach. The seated figure is shown in profile, her right hand holding a parasol on the sand. She exchanges a look with the standing figure to her right who holds a basket at her side. The women are joined by a small white dog, and before the water stands a young boy dressed in blue, seemingly throwing an object into the ocean. The standing figure serves as a vertical force which connects the horizontally banded foreground, water, and sky. 

The women appear carefree and neither at work nor in the presence of men. Painted later in Renoir’s career, a period at which point the artist expressed skepticism of industrialism and machines, this quiet seascape pays homage to the resplendent beauty of what is ordinary and simple. More on this painting

Pierre-Auguste Renoir, commonly known as Auguste Renoir (25 February 1841 – 3 December 1919), was a French artist who was a leading painter in the development of the Impressionist style. As a celebrator of beauty, and especially feminine sensuality, it has been said that "Renoir is the final representative of a tradition which runs directly from Rubens to Watteau."

He was the father of actor Pierre Renoir (1885–1952), filmmaker Jean Renoir (1894–1979) and ceramic artist Claude Renoir (1901–69). He was the grandfather of the filmmaker Claude Renoir (1913–1993), son of Pierre. MorePierre-Auguste Renoir

NABANITA SAHA, (INDIAN, B.1974)

EXODUS I 

Oil on canvas 

152cm x 182cm (59.75in x 71.5in)

Private collection

Nabanita Saha gained her B.V.A. from the Government College of Art & Craft in Kolkatta in 1999, and earned an M.F.A. in Graphics from the Faculty of Fine Arts, M.S. University, Baroda. 

Throughout her education and career she has been awarded several honours including the 2012 Elizabeth Greenshields Grant from Canada, the 2002 All India Fine Arts and Crafts Society award (State Level), and the National Scholarship 2001 to 2003. 

Saha has exhibited extensively in India in both solo and group exhibitions, as well as further afield in Korea and Switzerland. Her work features in collections throughout India and internationally. More on Nabanita Saha

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