Dead calm - on the Mersey

Details

John Atkinson Grimshaw (1836-1893)
Dead calm - on the Mersey
signed and dated 'Atkinson Grimshaw. V.3.93.' (lower right) and further signed, inscribed and dated 'Dead calm - on the Mersey./ Atkinson Grimshaw - V.3.93.' (on the reverse)
oil on board
9 ¾ x 19 3/8 in. (24.8 x 49.2 cm.)

Provenance

Bought by the father of the present owner in London, circa 1960.

Special notice

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Lot Essay

Executed in 1893, the present picture is one of a small group that can be seen as the summation of Grimshaw's lifetime exploration of the varying effects of light. With a restricted palette, and startling economy of means, a ship is depicted against a horizon, punctuated by the twinkling of distant lights. The influence of Grimshaw’s friend and neighbour James McNeil Whistler's famous series of Nocturnes has clearly been absorbed, and yet the style remains distinctively Grimshaw's own. So accomplished were these nocturnal scenes that they led Whistler to remark upon seeing them ‘I considered myself the inventor of nocturnes until I saw Grimmy’s moonlight pictures’.

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