Montague Dawson R.S.M.A., F.R.S.A.

Collection of Mr. Arthur Leidesdorf, United States
Frost & Reed Ltd., London (acquired from the above in 1976)
Private collection, United States

Ron Ranson, The Maritime Paintings of Montague Dawson, Newton Abbot, Devon, 1998, pp. 70-71, illustrated in color

The following condition report was kindly provided by Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc.: This painting is in lovely condition. The canvas is not lined. The paint layer has been cleaned and lightly varnished. There are a few tiny retouches in the upper and lower left but essentially the picture has survived perfectly and should be hung in its current, good frame, with no further restoration needed.
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Montague Dawson was born into an artistic family in London in 1895.  He was taught from an early age by his father, a Thames yachtsman and artist, and his grandfather Henry Dawson, a successful landscape painter. Montague Dawson would become perhaps the best known and most successful marine artist of his generation.

Although Dawson was not formally trained, he inherited a talent for painting, and around 1910 was hired by a commercial studio in London.  At the outbreak of World War I, he joined the Royal Navy, where he illustrated images of war for publications.

After the War ended, he established himself as a painter and illustrator, concentrating on historically accurate portraits of ships, drawing on Britain's rich nautical heritage. It was in the 1920's that he became formally associated with Frost & Reed. This association increased his exposure, and demand grew for his works. From the early 1930s he lived at Milford-on-Sea in Hampshire, and he exhibited occasionally at the Royal Academy between 1916 and 1936.