Charles Ginner

Ginner exhibited watercolours at the Goupil Gallery in January 1924; this one was made just before that exhibition after a fall of snow. In his second notebook it is recorded as the last item made in 1923, and so was likely to have been drawn in December.1 It is a finished watercolour for display, not a preparatory drawing for a painting. Painted from a mirror, it shows a reversed view of Hampstead as seen from the attic of 61 Hampstead High Street, the address where Ginner lived from 1919 to 1938.

The wide margins of the paper are full of colour notes, some of them linked to numbered places on the edge of the picture. On the right these are partly covered with dabs of watercolour, where Ginner was blotting the brush or testing colours as the picture was painted. The colour notes indicate Ginner’s particular interest in bricks and chimneys. although they are difficult to read and the words in this list might not all be accurate. At the top it reads:

Running down the left-hand side:

At the bottom of the paper:

And running down the right-hand side:

The railings as seen from Ginner’s window are there today just as in the watercolour, and one building in the street is the same.2 The church spire belonged to Trinity Presbyterian Church, which has been demolished. The work appears to have been drawn accurately, but then the whole image – window, railings and view – are reversed from left to right, as if a preparatory drawing had been turned upside down and a copy made. This was noted in the 1964 Tate Gallery catalogue.3 Responding to the Assistant Keeper Mary Chamot’s queries, Ginner’s sister Ruby Ginner Dyer replied: