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Lot Essay
In June 1870 the Holls took a family holiday at the fishing village of Cullercoats, nine miles from Newcastle upon Tyne. During their two month stay, the young painter had an ulterior motive - for having received a commission from Queen Victoria, he was in search of a good subject. This he found in No Tidings from the Sea (Royal Collection), a picture of a distressed fisherman's family.
Holl's daughter informs us that her father made many studies at the village, (A.M. Reynolds, The Life and Work of Frank Holl, 1912, pp. 83-6). Nevertheless until the appearance of the present work, it was thought that Queen Victoria's commission was the only oil painting to result from the trip. We now know that this scene of despair was preceded by much anxious scanning of the sea from the cliff tops on the part of fishermens' wives and families - a theme that the great American painter, Winslow Homer, adopted on his visit to Cullercoats, ten years later, and which was taken up by Walter Langley at Newlyn, Laura Knight at Staithes and many others. However, perhaps the greatest admirer of Holl's work was Vincent van Gogh. Using words such as 'superb' and 'matchless', van Gogh referred repeatedly to Holl's wood engravings for The Graphic, and placing him above Gavarni and Daumier, found his work 'had something noble and a more serious sentiment' than theirs (Letters, vol. 1, 1958, pp. 476-7). Some of this sentiment is apparent in the picture of a child and her mother sitting on a 'creel' counting the dots on the distant horizon. KMc.
This picture has been requested for Frank Holl: Emerging from the Shadows at the Mercer Art Gallery, Harrogate, 23 November 2013-30 March 2014.
Holl's daughter informs us that her father made many studies at the village, (A.M. Reynolds, The Life and Work of Frank Holl, 1912, pp. 83-6). Nevertheless until the appearance of the present work, it was thought that Queen Victoria's commission was the only oil painting to result from the trip. We now know that this scene of despair was preceded by much anxious scanning of the sea from the cliff tops on the part of fishermens' wives and families - a theme that the great American painter, Winslow Homer, adopted on his visit to Cullercoats, ten years later, and which was taken up by Walter Langley at Newlyn, Laura Knight at Staithes and many others. However, perhaps the greatest admirer of Holl's work was Vincent van Gogh. Using words such as 'superb' and 'matchless', van Gogh referred repeatedly to Holl's wood engravings for The Graphic, and placing him above Gavarni and Daumier, found his work 'had something noble and a more serious sentiment' than theirs (Letters, vol. 1, 1958, pp. 476-7). Some of this sentiment is apparent in the picture of a child and her mother sitting on a 'creel' counting the dots on the distant horizon. KMc.
This picture has been requested for Frank Holl: Emerging from the Shadows at the Mercer Art Gallery, Harrogate, 23 November 2013-30 March 2014.