The Sunny South
Walter Langley, RI (1852-1922)
1885
Oil on canvas
Size: H 122 x W 61 cm
Penlee House Art Gallery & Museum; accession no. PEZPH: 1998.32
Langley, like the Newlyn artists generally, used local people as his models, and here, as the short comment on Art UK tells us, he has painted his neighbour, William Curnow an expert on mosses. Curnow is seen with his spade, apparently just preparing the ground in spring, under some early blossoming branches.
The date and medium of this work are significant. Langley had built his reputation so far on his watercolours: he had been elected as a member of the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolour in 1883. But most of the new arrivals in Newlyn showed a preference for oils, and now he was trying to establish his credentials in this medium as well (see Langley 62). The painting was shown at the Royal Academy, and he became an associate member of the Institute of Painters in Oil in the following year (1886). According to the Art Fund's website, his setting here "is the view, with photographic clarity, from the artist's home, Pembroke Lodge, looking down towards Newlyn."