The riverside

Details

Ruskin Spear, R.A. (London 1911-1990)
The riverside
oil on canvas
28 x 34 in. (71 x 87 cm.)

Provenance

J.M.A. Smith.
Anonymous sale; Christie's, London, 26 November 1999, lot 160, where purchased by the present owner.

Exhibited

London, Royal Academy, 1946, no. 498.
London, Arts Council of Great Britain, Four Contemporary British Artists, 1947, no. 19.

Special notice

Artist's Resale Right ("Droit de Suite"). Artist's Resale Right Regulations 2006 apply to this lot, the buyer agrees to pay us an amount equal to the resale royalty provided for in those Regulations, and we undertake to the buyer to pay such amount to the artist's collection agent.

Lot Essay

Ruskin Spear was born in Hammersmith and made the area the subject of most of his paintings. He studied at Hammersmith School of Art and the Royal College of Art and went on to teach at Croydon School of Art, St. Martin's School of Art and the Royal College of Art. He exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1932 and was elected a Royal Academician in 1954.

A similar view towards Hammersmith Bridge by the same artist, River in Winter, 1951 (Glynn Vivian Art Gallery and Museum, Swansea) was exhibited as no. 20 in the Royal Academy's 1980 Retrospective Exhibition. In the introduction to the catalogue Robert Buhler wrote, 'One could say that Ruskin Spear has done for Hammersmith what Sickert did for Camden Town' (see R. Buhler, Ruskin Spear, R.A., Royal Academy Retrospective Exhibition Catalogue, 1980, p. 8).

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