Works by Wolseley of this size and subject are very rare. In 2011 a somewhat larger study titled Picking Bluebells, again a pastoral study of two young girls, sold in a London saleroom for £85,000 (inc buyers premium).
Provenance: From Nettlecombe Court, Somerset (the artist's estate), Court Gallery stamp verso.
Newlyn treasures see the light of day
October 15, 2005
A collection of paintings by Garnet Ruskin Wolseley (1884-1967) had been stored until recently at Nettlecombe Court for almost 100 years. The artist's son, John, himself a highly regarded painter living in Australia, has decided to sell them, most of which were executed while the artist was living in Newlyn between 1908 and 1913. They now feature in an autumn exhibition entitled Newlyn Summers at the Court Gallery, Nether Stowey. Garnet Wolseley was the son of the Rev Robert W Wolseley of London, a first cousin of Field Marshall Lord Wolseley, and related to John Ruskin on his mother's side. He studied at Hubert von Herkomer's School of Painting in Bushey in 1901 from where he won the Slade Scholarship to study under Henry Tonks and Fred Brown. From this experience he benefited greatly and was awarded the gold medal. From 1908 he was in Newlyn with Harold and Laura Knight, Harold Harvey and Stanhope Forbes, working in the studio where Frank Bramley had painted his famous work - A Hopeless Dawn. From now on Wolseley was exhibiting regularly at the Royal Academy, the New English Art Club and in Liverpool at the Walker Art Gallery. He was particularly close to Laura Knight, and it is known the two collaborated on large paintings. One of these, Picking Flowers above Newlyn, measures 46 x 58in (117.48 x 148.6cm). The war interrupted his work until in 1919 and he returned to London, working from a Chelsea studio that had once belonged to Rossetti, and keeping a house in Sussex. While in the country he discovered iron age sites that nurtured a parallel career as an archaeologist and he wrote papers on the subject. In 1937 he married Joan Trevelyan and by 1939 had moved to Snowdonia with his wife and three children to concentrate on landscape painting. Within four years, however, his wife had died and he moved to his wife's family home at Nettlecombe in Somerset, where he died 24 years later.
Medium:
Oil on canvas -
Frame:
Yes
Size:
20ins x 24ins -
Status:
Available
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