Portslade

The present work is one of a series that David Jones executed depicting the view from the veranda of the cottage that his parents rented at Portslade near Hove. He wrote that it was, 'at high tide literally almost like a ship in the sea ... one felt very much surrounded by water'. Nicolette Gray comments, 'The paintings are very much paintings of water ... The later Portslade paintings are almost always framed by the same partition in the foreground or at the side, and by the cast-iron supports which terminate at the top in outward moving curves ... The knobbly elaboration of the material makes a fascinating juxtaposition with the watery sea. These paintings are some of David Jones's most remarkable works. He reckoned that the sea was for him an important influence' (The paintings of David Jones, Hatfield and London, 1989, pp. 31-2).

In this series of works Jones demonstrated his expertise in the medium of watercolour. 'While it is clear that he was using oil in a variety of ways, it was in watercolour that Jones's finest south coast paintings were made. In Portslade of 1929 ... the door and verandah supports on the right set up a fascinating relation of spaces, and the curtain, ubiquitous in Jones's work, appears like some remnant, an expression of the poignancy of departure, by an itinerant who was increasingly becoming afraid of travel' (J. Miles and D. Shiel, loc. cit).