Fisherman by the Harbour Wall, Newlyn, by Henry Meynell Rheam, RI (1859-1920). 1920. Watercolour on paper. H 19 x W 23.5 cm. Penlee House Gallery & Museum (bequeathed); accession no. PEZPH : 2013.28. Kindly made available via Art UK on the Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivatives licence (CC BY-ND).
An account of Rheam by Christie's auction site points out that he "was not typical of the Newlyn School either in his meticulous use of watercolour or his interest in literary subjects, which often suggest that he had looked hard at the Pre-Raphaelites." Here, the figure of the elderly fisherman is posed, representative: he melts into his craggy surroundings, a very symbol of the fisherman's life of hard-won survival against odds. The technique, too, is different, with more close detail than could be achieved with the typical Newlyn artists' "square brush" method. There is the same emphasis on tone, however, used here to great effect.— Jacqueline Banerjee
Bibliography
Fisherman by the Harbour Wall, Newlyn. Penlee House Gallery & Museum. Web. 6 April 2021.
Violets. Christie's. Web. 6 April 2021.
Created 6 April 2021