James Dickson Innes
Arenig, Sunny Evening
(c.1911–12)
Tate
James Dickson lnnes was born in 1887 at Llanelly. He was schooled at Christ's College, Brecon, and worked at the Art School at Carmarthen, 1904–5. A still life subject, done at a leaving examination, does not reveal exceptional powers.
From 1905 to 1908 Innes worked at the Slade School, winning a scholarship and a prize. He began to exhibit at the New English Art Club in 1907. Works of these years show him as a capable follower of the English Impressionists Steer and Sickert, while in the early seapiece at Collioure there appears to be the influence of Conder.
From 1908 his work began to change in aim. There are traces of the influence of the French Post-Impressionists, whose work he may have seen in Paris, particularly in South of France and gradually Innes turned from Impressionism to a more decorative treatment of landscape, marked by brilliant colours and intensely luminous atmosphere. No doubt the study of the Cotman drawings in the British Museum, for which he had a great admiration, gave him hints and encouragement in this effort to achieve greater formalism of design and colour.
Innes' premature death at the age of 27 deprived British Art of a gifted and original painter.
