Lot 47
  • 47

Henry Scott Tuke, R.A., R.W.S.

Estimate
150,000 - 250,000 GBP
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Description

  • Henry Scott Tuke, R.A., R.W.S.
  • Under the Western Sun
  • signed and dated l.r.: H. S. TUKE 1918; also inscribed on a label attached to the stretcher: No.1 Royal Academy 19/ Under the Western Sun/ Henry. S. Tuke/ Lyndon Lodge/....
  • oil on canvas
  • 152.5 by 112cm., 60 by 44in.

Provenance

Purchased from the Royal Academy exhibition in 1918 by Cesare de Trey, Surrey;
Fine Art Society, London;
Ronald Smolden, by 1966;
Christie's, 6 November 1998, lot 100;
Private collection

Exhibited

Royal Academy, 1918, no.163;
Falmouth, Art Gallery, Henry Scott Tuke, R.A., R.W.S., 1989. no.33 

Literature

Maria Tuke Sainsbury, Henry Scott Tuke, A Memoir, 1931, p.193;
Brian D. Price, The Registers of Henry Scott Tuke, 1986, p.876;
David Wainwright & Caroline Dinn, Henry Scott Tuke 1858-1929: Under Canvas, 1989, pp.120, 124, 126, pl.107;
Catherine Wallace, Catching the Light: The Art and Life of Henry Scott Tuke, 2008, p.124.
Catherine Wallace, The Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society Tuke Collection, Henry Scott Tuke: Paintings from Cornwall, 2008, p.49.

Condition

The canvas has been lined. The paint surface is slightly dirty and may benefit form a very light clean. Otherwise the work is in excellent overall condition. UV light inspection reveals some fine infilling and retouching to craquelure that has been executed well and sympathetically. Held in a decorative and gilded composition frame.
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Catalogue Note

'Of all the paintings in which he [Tom White] appeared, it is perhaps Under the Western Sun which is the most triumphant; it is a sparkling study, an affirmation of the artist's faith in the pre-eminence and resilience of youth.' (David Wainwright and Catherine Dinn, Henry Scott Tuke 1858-1929 - Under Canvas, 1989, pp.120-124)

The largest and most important paintings of Henry Scott Tuke’s career are his portraits of youthful males swimming, diving or lounging by the Cornish coast. Basking in the sun by a shimmering sea, they evoke a golden, carefree summer and rank among the strongest examples of British naturalism that emerged at the turn of the 20th century.

Under the Western Sun depicts a lithe-limbed and slim boy from Falmouth named Tom White, who Tuke had first noticed swimming with friends in Sunny Cove. Tuke already knew one of the other bathers, a shop assistant named Webber, who formally introduced the artist and his new model. Since leaving school White had worked as a Post Office messenger boy and welcomed the opportunity to earn some extra money. Tuke painted him over four summers from 1915 to 1918 whilst his favourite model Charlie Mitchell was away on active service. Their preferred location for painting was on Newporth Beach and Tuke purchased a bicycle for Tom so that he could get there more easily. He was paid 2s 6d for a sitting and as a sensible young man, he saved most of the money he earned as a model (around £80) with which he bought furniture after he was married. He has left a wonderful record of his friendship with Tuke; 'Tuke never painted me in the studio, but always out of doors, usually on the beach, and always nude. My attitude to the whole thing was rather naïve; I took it very light-heartedly... My skin colour was important as Tuke did not want sunburn, and I could not sunbathe in off times... I thought that being a model was not quite the thing, and asked Tuke not to paint the likeness of my face in a painting. Tuke accepted my wishes, and was a perfect gentleman.' (ibid Wainwright and Dinn, p.120) Although Tuke attempted to persuade Tom to stay in Falmouth, he eventually left for London and worked for the Commercial Cable Company. However, Tuke managed to persuade him to attend the Royal Academy exhibition of 1918 in which Under the Western Sun appeared, so that Tom could hear the comments of the visitors.

Painted en plein air, few artists managed to rival Tuke’s ability to render the effects of sunlight on the body, the coastline and the sea which sparkles in a multitude of colours. Carrying his painting equipment and large canvases to remote beaches was not easy but it was, as Tuke insisted, necessary for ‘the truth and beauty of flesh in sunlight by the sea is offered to you in a way impossible to secure in pictures built up from hasty sketches, at leisure, in one’s studio.’ (E. B. Steyne, ‘Afternoons in Studios: Henry Scott Tuke at Falmouth’, Studio V, 1895, pp.90-96) Tuke’s paintings hold true to this statement, and demonstrate his sensibility to light and consummate brushwork.

It took Tuke a number of years and experimentation before settling upon his most successful formula exemplified in the present work. Tuke had trained at the Slade School of Art in London under the academic influence of Sir Edward Poynter, yet he had also seen the Impressionists in France, spending time in Paris where he made a lifelong friend of John Singer Sargent. Upon establishing his studio in Falmouth, Tuke originally tried to harmonise his paintings of youth with a classical or mythological context. The results appeared awkward and contrived, and it was only upon resolving to abandon narrative concerns that Tuke’s paintings became freer. Rather than being weighed down by a subject, the figures in Tuke’s paintings were now celebrations of beauty in their own right, aligning more closely to modern painting principles.

For many contemporary critics, Tuke’s paintings – alive and sparkling – represented, as Emmanuel Cooper wrote, ‘all that was pure and unspoilt, a celebration of the present, a hope for the future.' (The Life and Work of Henry Scott Tuke, 1987, p.29) Painted in 1918, the vast loss of men in the First World War lends the present painting an added poignancy. Recognising the quality of Tuke’s work early on, the Tate acquired one of Tuke’s most celebrated paintings, August Blue, 1894, for the nation. Other noted examples entered public collections such as Ruby, Gold and Malachite (Guildhall Art Gallery, London) and Noonday Heat (Falmouth Art Gallery). Under the Western Sun ranks alongside these, showcasing Tuke as one of the finest exponents of British naturalism which emerged from the Cornish painting colonies at the turn of the twentieth century.