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Lot Essay
In 1916 Mark Senior moved his studio a short distance from Cookridge Street, which he had occupied for eight years, to Sun Buildings, 15 Park Row, in the centre of Leeds. It was a location he particularly admired. Having been recorded a generation earlier by the city’s most famous Victorian painter, John Atkinson Grimshaw, in 1882 (Leeds Art Galleries and Museums), it connected the old City Square with Park Lane, the perimeter of the commercial district, now known as The Headrow. It was essentially unchanged since Grimshaw’s day, except for two significant factors. In 1904 the old St Anne’s Cathedral was demolished and immediately rebuilt – its tall spire, a focal point at the north end of the street, being replaced by the squat, square tower of the present church. The second important change was the arrival of tramways and motor cars.
Since Cookridge Street is the continuation of Park Row, we can assume Senior’s familiarity with the vicinity after 1908, and Sun Buildings, the location of his second studio, was adjacent to the viewpoint for the present canvas. Like other surrounding buildings in the High Renaissance style, it was occupied by an insurance broker. Its immediate neighbour with a wall-mounted clock on the right of the picture was the Eagle Star company. Facing it, on the left was the old town museum, housed in the Literary and Philosophical Society Hall, and one of the earliest municipal museums in Britain. Its characteristic portico surmounted by a balustrade remained until the air raids of 1941, and the original building of 1821 was only finally demolished in 1966 to make way for a bank.
Given the time on the clock and the direction of the sunlight falling across this north/south axis, we may assume that visitors are disembarking from a charabanc to attend a reception in the museum. A flash of red enlivens the small crowd, while around it, the electrified city trams in their yellow livery, ply their trade. On the far side of the street, roaring past, is a sleek green sports saloon, its top retracted on this bright summer morning in the northern metropolis.
Senior was experimenting with new subject matter. In another smaller canvas, painted around the same time, he chose a vantage point in nearby Commercial Street (Leeds Art Galleries and Museums). For the leader of the Staithes Group, with a house at Runswick Bay, who also haunted the picturesque corners of Bruges with Frank Brangwyn, and painted at Ludlow with Philip Wilson Steer, the streets of Leeds were a direct assault on modernity. The city was burgeoning. Rivalry with Liverpool, Manchester, Bradford and Hull meant that its wealthy mercantile classes paid great attention to the art on their walls and Senior was, at this time the advisor to Sam Wilson, one of the city’s most important benefactors – a role he shared with George Clausen. While rooted in the city, his outlook was cosmopolitan and in the splendid spontaneity of canvases such as Park Row, Leeds, he addresses the broader range of Impressionist painting in the handling of sunlight stroking the cobbled street and striking the sides of buildings. The scene in every sense, is comparable to those of Jacques-Emile Blanche, Algernon Talmage and John Lavery. At the same time it brings a busy northern thoroughfare to life in the crystal light of morning.
KMc.
Since Cookridge Street is the continuation of Park Row, we can assume Senior’s familiarity with the vicinity after 1908, and Sun Buildings, the location of his second studio, was adjacent to the viewpoint for the present canvas. Like other surrounding buildings in the High Renaissance style, it was occupied by an insurance broker. Its immediate neighbour with a wall-mounted clock on the right of the picture was the Eagle Star company. Facing it, on the left was the old town museum, housed in the Literary and Philosophical Society Hall, and one of the earliest municipal museums in Britain. Its characteristic portico surmounted by a balustrade remained until the air raids of 1941, and the original building of 1821 was only finally demolished in 1966 to make way for a bank.
Given the time on the clock and the direction of the sunlight falling across this north/south axis, we may assume that visitors are disembarking from a charabanc to attend a reception in the museum. A flash of red enlivens the small crowd, while around it, the electrified city trams in their yellow livery, ply their trade. On the far side of the street, roaring past, is a sleek green sports saloon, its top retracted on this bright summer morning in the northern metropolis.
Senior was experimenting with new subject matter. In another smaller canvas, painted around the same time, he chose a vantage point in nearby Commercial Street (Leeds Art Galleries and Museums). For the leader of the Staithes Group, with a house at Runswick Bay, who also haunted the picturesque corners of Bruges with Frank Brangwyn, and painted at Ludlow with Philip Wilson Steer, the streets of Leeds were a direct assault on modernity. The city was burgeoning. Rivalry with Liverpool, Manchester, Bradford and Hull meant that its wealthy mercantile classes paid great attention to the art on their walls and Senior was, at this time the advisor to Sam Wilson, one of the city’s most important benefactors – a role he shared with George Clausen. While rooted in the city, his outlook was cosmopolitan and in the splendid spontaneity of canvases such as Park Row, Leeds, he addresses the broader range of Impressionist painting in the handling of sunlight stroking the cobbled street and striking the sides of buildings. The scene in every sense, is comparable to those of Jacques-Emile Blanche, Algernon Talmage and John Lavery. At the same time it brings a busy northern thoroughfare to life in the crystal light of morning.
KMc.