SIR JOHN LAVERY R.A., R.S.A., R.H.A., P.R.P., H.R.O.I., L.L.B. (IRISH 1856-1941)
A ROUGH SEA
£31,450
Auction: 26 September 2024 From 18:00 BST
Description
Signed, oil on canvas board
Dimensions
25.5cm x 35.5cm (10in x 14in)
Provenance
Fulton Bequest, 1933.
Footnote
Exhibited:
London, The Goupil Gallery, John Lavery, RSA, RHA, 1908, no.64 (?);
St Andrews, Crawford Art Centre, John Lavery: The Early Career, 1880-1895,1983, no.24;
Paisley, Paisley Museum & Art Galleries, A Paisley Legacy: The Paisley Art Institute Collection, 2015, no.51.
By 1906, Lavery’s encounters with the sea were confined to a few odd moments on the Antrim coast, the Clyde estuary and the beach at Tangier. His recent purchase of Dar-el-Midfah, the house on Mount Washington, to the west of the Moroccan port, made short descents to nearby beaches a daily possibility during annual winter sojourns.[1] Here he constructed a garden studio and spent up to four months each year. The painter now became obsessed with the moods of the sea, making rapid sketches on 10 x 14-inch canvas-boards in all weathers. Like Turner, he was fascinated by the subtle colour transitions that led the eye from foreground foam to sea over sand, and on to the shrill cerulean and cobalt blues of the deep. Often, at low tide, his shoreline would be punctuated by rocky outcrops that would become sources of fascination for his stepdaughter, Alice, in later years. In the present instance, one of the earliest treatments of this enticing subject matter, we find a rock cluster that would feature in a number of larger canvases such as Tangier Bay, Rain, 1910 (Ulster Museum, Belfast. One only had to move a little to the left or right for a new abstract arrangement to suggest itself.
We are grateful to Professor Kenneth McConkey for writing this catalogue entry.
[1] McConkey 2010, pp. 96-105. With the exception of 1912-13, and the war years, Lavery returned every winter until 1919-20, to Tangier.