Southwold, the East Coast
An Exhibition to accompany the book Southwold, a Earthly Paradise by Geoffrey Munn

Katherine Hamilton - Southwold, Summer

 

Contributing Artists

Richard Bawden RWS	Alex Beale
William Bowyer RA	Christopher Chestnutt
James Dodds	Joan Elliott Bates
Graham Giles	Julie Giles
Katherine Hamilton	Eveline Hastings
James Horton	Diana Howard
Maurice Kelly	Caroline McAdam Clark RBA
Władysław Mirecki	Tessa Newcomb
Noel Myles	Margot Noyes
Anne Paton	Roland Piché
Nick Pratt	Andrew Pringle
John Reay	Richard Scott
Christopher Sinclair	Wendy Sinclair
Jane Strother	Margaret Thomas NEAC RBA RWA
Emily Whalley

---

Moss Fuller Crossing the Bridge Watercolour 19x35 £400	Christopher Chestnutt Southwold from the South Layered print 21x35 £160 £125 u/f	C. McAdam Clark RBA Hauling up the Boat Etching A/P 26x24.5 £300	C. McAdam Clark RBA Consigning Her to the Sea Etching Ed 30 26x24.5 £300
Richard Bawden RWS The Blythe at Walberswick Watercolour £680	Moss Fuller Walberswick Marshes in August Watercolour 40x51 £650	Alex Beale Southwold Harbour, Low Tide Mixed media 22.5x20 £450	Noel Myles Vanishing Point Platinum print Ed 50 44x53 £530 £450 u/f
Joan Elliott-Bates Blackshore, Southwold Oil 61x82 £2500	William Bowyer RA Lunch at Walberswick Oil 71x81 £4000	Tom Deakins Ice Cream Colours at Southwold Oil 46x61 £1500	James Dodds Southwold Linocut Ed 150 51x71 £375 £290 u/f
Christopher Chestnutt The Old Brewery Layered print 21x14 £125 £95 u/f	Christopher Chestnutt Bank House, Market Place, Southwold Pen/ink 14x18 £185	Noel Myles Thornham Platinum print Ed 50 38x53 £530 £450 u/f	Noel Myles Victorians in Southwold Platinum print Ed 30 38x53 £580 £500 u/f
Noel Myles Earth, Water, Air Platinum print Ed 50 38x22 £480 £400 u/f	Noel Myles The Catch Platinum print Ed 30 33x41 £580 £500 u/f	Noel Myles Winter Sand Platinum print Ed 50 27x27 £380 £320 u/f	Noel Myles Southwold Harbour Platinum print Ed 50 27x28 £480 £400 u/f
Noel Myles Blackshore, Southwold Platinum print Ed 50 38x52 £580 £500 u/f	Noel Myles Shore Platinum print Ed 3 (last one) 48x38 £530 £450 u/f	Noel Myles The ‘Mara Cu’ in Southwold Platinum print Ed 50 33x49 £480 £400 u/f	Noel Myles A Short Film of a Wave, Cley Platinum print Ed 20 38x14 £480 £400 u/f
Noel Myles Sand Grass Platinum print Ed 20 16x16 £360 £300 u/f	Noel Myles Morning and Evening Platinum print Ed 25 38x20 £480 £400u/f	Noel Myles Southwold Platinum print Ed 30 33x41 £530 £450 u/f	Noel Myles Beach (possibly the only print) Platinum print A/P 48x38 £530 £450 u/f
Noel Myles Breakwater Platinum print Ed 50 41x50 £580 £500 u/f	Noel Myles Duckboards and verticals Platinum print Ed 20 22x33 £480 £400 u/f	Andrew Pringle Windows Oil 46x27 £450	Graham Giles Southwold Lighthouse Oil 24x64 £980
Graham Giles On the Edge of the Sea Oil 28x76 £1150	James Horton RBA Early Morning, Walberswick Beach Oil 38x47 £1250	Tessa Newcomb Some Picnic, Walberswick Oil 41x36 £1200	Tessa Newcomb Easter Visitors about to Arrive Oil 8x35 £450
Maurice Kelly A Wet Walk Oil 46x66 £700	Joan Elliott-Bates High Summer, Southwold Oil 30.5x25.5 £900	Joan Elliott-Bates East Anglia in Winter Oil 19x25 £595	Tessa Newcomb Discussing the Chickens Oil 31x61 £1400
William Bowyer RA The Beach, Walberswick Oil 30x30 £1500	William Bowyer RA Just before lunch Oil 19x31 £1250	Julie Giles The Yellow Dingy Oil 48x35 £875	Andrew Pringle Hatton’s Farm Oil 17x53 £350
Maurice Kelly Prodigals Return Oil 31x51 £600	Richard Bawden RWS Fishermen’s Huts Etching Ed 85 40x58 £250 £180 u/f	Anne Paton Southwold, View from Pier Mixed media 27x51 £440	Anne Paton Evening Sky, Walberswick Acrylic 35x59 £620
Richard Bawden RWS South Green, Southwold Etching Ed 75 36x54 £230 £160 u/f	Julie Giles The Banana Boat Oil 15x22 £325	Julie Giles Summer Seashore Oil 20x30 £450	C. McAdam Clark RBA Looking Out to Sea Oil 25.5x25.5 £700
RC. McAdam Clark RBA Happisburgh Oil 30.5x30.5 £900	Margot Noyes Boats & Cottages, Blackshore Oil 20x26 £450	Margot Noyes Figures in the Surf Oil 20x26 £450	Wendy Sinclair Sea Holly on the Beach Oil 30x38 £400
Jane Strother Beach Huts at Southwold Acrylic 20x50 £695	Roland Piche Woman in the Seascape Resin 13x20 £975	Roland Piche Meditations on the Beach Resin 18x23 £975	C. McAdam Clark RBA From the Wash to North Foreland Oil 50x100 £2,200
John Reay Bathers 5 Oil 115x76 £3850	Joan Elliott-Bates Fishermen Aldeburgh Beach Oil 25.5x15.5 £950	Margot Noyes Looking out to Sea Oil 20x26 £450	Margot Noyes Beach Walk Oil 20x26 £450
James Horton RBA The Dunes, Walberswick Oil 47x55 £1750	Andrew Pringle Primrose Cottage Oil 18x18 £350	Andrew Pringle Corner Farm Oil 18x18 £350	Maurice Kelly After the Match Oil 51x51 £750
Julie Giles Spring Morning, Southwold Oil 30x45 £750	Julie Giles March Afternoon, Southwold Oil 30x45 £750	Tom Deakins Beyond (Aldeburgh) Oil 31x51 £1200	Graham Giles An Outing to the Seashore Oil 30x41 £850
Andrew Pringle River Bank Oil 22x17 £275	Andrew Pringle Stage, Southwold Oil 29x28 £350	Diana Howard Lady of Situations Oil 28x31 £650	Richard Scott The Lone Ranger Oil 25.5x35.5 £520
Julie Giles Spring Evening, Southwold Oil 30x45 £750	Graham Giles The Yellow Kite, Walberswick Oil 28x47 £850	Margaret Thomas NEAC My River Oil 51x76 £1750	Katherine Hamilton Southwold, Summer Photo litho zeta lined paper Ed 250 34x90 £295 £210 u/f
Margaret Thomas NEAC Brandy Rose Oil 46x76 £2750	Waj Mirecki Sand Dunes and Reeds Watercolour 72x45 £1750	Eveline Hastings Winter Evening Walk, Walberswick Pastel 30x38 £440	Peter Kelly RBA The Path by the Dyke Watercolour 47x67 £1,500
Eveline Hastings Harbour Pier, Walberswick Pastel 28x39 £440	Emily Whalley Song Oil 91x76 £1740	Roland Piche Woman Reclining in the Sea Resin 10.5x25.5 £870	Anne Paton View from Southwold Pier Mixed media 13x23 £295
C. McAdam Clark RBA Martello 1 Oil 60x60 £2,200	Christopher Sinclair Southwold from Walberswick Watercolour 26x48 £500	Waj Mirecki Sand Dunes at Sunset Watercolour 20x60 £725	Nick Pratt Swanland Italian alabaster 12x32x12 £1025
Nick Pratt Swan Vessel Italian alabaster 20x56x22 £2600	Nick Pratt Goose Stepping Out Italian alabaster 31x18x15 £1740	Nick Pratt Running Snowgoose Italian alabaster 17x44x14 £1,525	Tessa Newcomb Residencies Oil 15x20 £655
Tessa Newcomb Let’s Go for a Walk at Walberswick Oil 15x20 £655

 

---

The personal signing by Geoffrey Munn of his book Southwold: An Earthly Paradise at the Chappel Galleries on April 28th provides an opportunity to bring together artists who have worked in or around this Suffolk coastal town.

Geoffrey Munn devotes an entire chapter to the photographer P H Emerson and his platinum prints. For this reason Noel Myles is our featured artist with his own platinum prints of Southwold and East Anglia. He has been working in this medium since 1998.

Emerson is renowned for his books on Norfolk and Suffolk life at the end of the 19th century. They contained tipped-in photographs made from platinum. This paper, which provided a permanent image of great tonal subtlety, was then available as a manufactured product. Nowadays artist photographers, who want to work with this medium, must prepare their own chemistry from precious metal compounds and light sensitive salts for coating fine papers by hand to make their prints.

Myles creates his images from dozens of individual negatives that are joined together and printed in direct contact with the sensitized paper. They are composed to evoke the broad experience of an occasion or place. His photographs have been exhibited at the Royal Academy, The Contemporary Art Society and last year he was awarded the East Anglia region prize at the ING Discerning Eye exhibition. He first exhibited at the Chappel Galleries in 2004.

---

“We are all artists at the seaside.” observed the Birmingham painter Joseph Southall in 1905 when writing to his friend, the painter and goldsmith, Arthur Gaskin. Although Southall was in Southwold at that particular moment, it was Walberswick which had the reputation for being the perfect resort for painters. A magazine called “Artist” had already noted:

“Looking either East or West, the horizon is scarcely broken, all is one dead level, yet such a lovely level over which the setting sun streams the glories of his crimson, orange and purple rays, which are reflected a thousand times in its rivers, dykes and the sea.”

This was a place that was truly picturesque, where fascination with the sea and landscape was heightened by a weird collection of shanties, huts and cottages. A wooden river crossing, now long gone, was lyrically compared with Rembrandt’s “Six’s Bridge”. This and the landscape described above, littered with old anchors, piers and capstans led the Suffolk writer Herbert Tompkins to observe in 1949 that:

“Walberswick, I think, must vie with Clovelly to be the Fontainebleau of England.”

The painter and art historian Richard Scott published his book: “Artists in Walberswick – East Anglian Interludes 1880-2000” in 2002. It is a vivid and comprehensive study and from it we learn that the artists who came to the Blyth Valley were not only innumerable but also a good proportion of them were of the highest possible order. Turner left footprints in Southwold’s art historical sand, and in them trod a succession of worldclass painters, including: Charles Keene, Philip Wilson Steer, Walter Osborne, Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Stanley Spencer. Both James Whistler and his friend Walter Sickert knew Southwold well and Stanley Spencer’s “Southwold”, painted in 1937 is possibly the most powerful evocation of the English seaside holiday ever made.

The local writer and journalist Ian Collins has shown in his recent book “Making Waves – Artists in Southwold” that most of those that came to paint in Walberswick made the short trip over the river Blyth to Southwold. There, artists encountered a topography that was altogether more challenging. A fine mediaeval church, and later a monumental lighthouse, dominated the clusters of Regency and Victorian houses that make up the town; below the cliff the problem was more acute since it was difficult to make a satisfactory and intelligible composition from the clusters of fishermen’s shacks which clustered there. Nonetheless, Arthur Evershed, Walter Crane, Walter Osborne, and Alan Gwynne Jones were some of those that succeeded in conveying Southwold’s contradictory atmosphere of town and seascape.

The poet George Crabbe who lived in Aldeburgh and frequented Southwold wrote revealingly:

“Turn to the watery world! – but who to thee (A wonder yet unview’d) shall paint – the sea?”

In fact virtually none of the artists who came to the Blyth valley took up the challenge, and fewer still succeeded in interpreting the sea in the myriad moods evoked so beautifully by Crabbe:

Various and vast, sublime in all its forms,
When lull’d by zephyrs, or when roused by storms,
Its colours changing, when from clouds and sun
Shades after shades upon the surface run;
Embrown’d and horrid now, and now serene,
In limpid blue and evanescent green

It was P.H.Emerson who succeeded where most other artists had failed. However, he achieved it not with a palette and brush, but with the camera’s lens and the luxurious and inimitable finish of the platinum print. In this noble tradition followed the photographer Noel Myles, who showed at Chappel Galleries for the first time in 2004.

No matter what the degree of individual flair and expertise these artists brought to Southwold, all of them have made a contribution to its unique visual legacy. It was that which first inspired me to write my pictorial history Southwold: An Earthly Paradise published in 2006, and it will continue to fascinate me forever. In gathering together the work of the many artists who continue to be drawn to Southwold and its environs, Chappel Galleries has brilliantly demonstrated that the unique tradition described above is alive and well today.

Geoffrey Munn 2007