Summer Exhibition

Stanhope Alexander Forbes RA NEAC, 1857–1947

1. The Forge, 1917oil on canvas152 x 117 cms 597⁄8 x 461⁄8 inssigned, dated and inscribed

provenance:David Messum, London.

exhibited:London: Royal Academy, 1917, no. 189.Pittsburgh: Carnegie Institute.Liverpool: British Empire Exhibition.Liverpool: Walker Art Gallery, 64th Autumn Exhibition, 1938.

By 1884, Stanhope Alexander Forbes played an active role in Newlyn’s artistic community, which had already attracted a small group of painters devoted to realist subjects, led by Walter Langley. The following year, the Royal Academy exhibited his painting A Fish Sale on a Cornish Beach, bringing national recognition to the art colony. For the next forty years, Forbes recorded every

aspect of life in Newlyn and nearby Penzance, which is where Ash Coach Builders, the setting of the present work, was likely located. A study for the painting, sold by Sotheby’s in May 1988, names the blacksmiths depicted as John Read Trenwith, the great grandfather of the forge’s present owner, and Jimmy Chinn.

Henry Herbert La Thangue RA NEAC, 1859–1929

14. Brescian Vines, 1913oil on canvas73 x 75 cms 283⁄4 x 291⁄2 inssigned lower left

In 1913, La Thangue set off from Provence across Northern Italy to Venice, stopping at the village of Limone on Lake Garda. In Brescia he became intrigued by the lakeside vineyards, which created patterns and tracery that to his eye evoked Japanese graphic effects. Equally, the landscape may have recalled works by Camille Corot, who also painted at Lake Garda, and doubtless those of John Singer Sargent, who La Thangue knew had recently

painted there. Like Henry James, he was also captivated by ‘the deep yellow light that enchants you and tells you where you are’ (see Henry James, Italian Hours, 1909, 1st Black Cat ed. [New York: Grove Press, 1979], 91, 104).

We are most grateful to Prof. Kenneth McConkey in providing

this information about La Thangue’s Lake Garda paintings.

Lucy Elizabeth Kemp-Welch RI ROI RBA, 1869–1958

20. Moment’s Rest, c. 1933oil on canvas 51 x 61 cms 197⁄8 x 241⁄8 ins signed lower left

exhibited:Paris: Salon, 1933.London: Royal Academy, 1934, no. 346.

The foremost animal painter of her generation, Lucy Kemp-Welch trained with Sir Hubert von Herkomer at Bushey. She was president of the Society of Animal Painters and exhibited annually at the Royal Academy, where she became renowned for her spirited animal compositions, most notably of workhorses. She was often questioned for not painting thoroughbreds, which might

have strengthened her position in a male-dominated genre. Yet Kemp-Welch believed that these refined, predictable animals left little for the artist to discover. Instead, she found workhorses fascinating, because their forms and movements were entwined with the ungovernable nature of the elements, landscape and other animals.

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