On the Front, Brighton

‘That autumn [1905] he interpreted a more urban strand in a series of studies made at Brighton in tempestuous autumn weather. In these late plein air studies he returned to a restricted tonal palette and employed a new sweeping brush technique of horizontal strokes. These works in their extreme reductiveness and concentration on mood are the closest Conder ever came to Whistler’s late landscapes and reflect his growing absorption in the art of the master who had recently died in 1903.’ (A. Galbally and B. Pearce, Charles Conder, Sydney, 2003, p. 69)

‘In November Stella and Conder went down to Brighton, taking a break from London and the exhibition preparations. They stayed at the Royal Albion Hotel on the seafront. The conjunction of sky, sea and shore had always proved irresistible to Conder, and in spite of the most appalling late autumn weather he revelled in painting nature at her most basic from his hotel window. There are at least five oils dating from this stay, all of them showing a similar scene of the quayside – a small pier jutting out into the sea and the figures of passers-by struggling against the wind and the rain. Sky and sea are differentiated only by texture. The promenade glistens in the low light. The scene is elemental – exactly what Conder loved beach scenes for. To him there was something about the conjunction of earth, sea and sky that leached out all extraneous meanings from the landscape. His figures are just another elemental adjunct. He wrote to Will [Rothenstein] of his feelings: "I never saw anything so beautiful as the sea today. It is nearly always so here – but today it made one think about Whistler it was so wonderful." The Brighton works, together with the earlier Swanage series, are the closest he ever came to challenging Whistler’s mastery of the seascape.’ (A. Galbally, Charles Conder: the last bohemian, Melbourne, 2002, pp. 269-70).