Philip Wilson Steer

Figures on the Beach, Walberswick

c.1888–9

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On loan

Museum of Art Pudong (Shanghai, China): Pudong

Artist: Philip Wilson Steer 1860–1942
Medium: Oil paint on canvas
Dimensions: Support: 610 × 610 mm
frame: 780 × 790 × 110 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Purchased 1947
Reference: N05766

Display caption

With hatched brushstrokes Steer has worked quickly and spontaneously to evoke the mood of a bright summer's day on the beach at Walberswick, showing the view out to sea with yachts on the horizon.
The figures have been drawn in quickly and fluidly with the brush, and Steer probably painted the whole picture at one sitting. There is no sign of any underdrawing.

Gallery label, September 1994

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Catalogue entry

N05766 FIGURES ON THE BEACH, WALBERSWICK c. 1888–9

Not inscribed.
Canvas, 24×24 (61×61).
Purchased from Humphrey Brooke (Knapping Fund) 1947.
Coll: Steer Sale, Christie's, 16 July 1942 (147), bt. Barbizon House; H. J. Paterson; Nicholson Gallery where purchased by Humphrey Brooke 1943.
Lit: MacColl, 1945, p.190, as painted 1888.

MacColl dates this work 1888, and either it or N05351 may be identical with ‘The Beach, Walberswick’ shown at the London Impressionists exhibition 1889.

Published in:
Mary Chamot, Dennis Farr and Martin Butlin, The Modern British Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture, London 1964, II