WALTER RICHARD SICKERT, A.R.A. | COIN DE LA RUE SAINTE CATHERINE, DIEPPE

Private Collection, France

Roland, Browse & Delbanco, London, 1951

Mrs Elizabeth Sutherland and thence by descent

Lillian Browse, Sickert, London, 1960, p.67, illustrated pl.21

Wendy Baron, Sickert Paintings & Drawings, London, 2006, cat. no.145.2, illustrated p.250 

The Normandy resort of Dieppe held a long-standing attraction for Walter Sickert stemming back to his childhood. He was subsequently to spend four decades as a regularly visitor and became a permanent resident between 1898-1905. His Dieppe paintings form a remarkable aspect of his career and was the subject of an exhibition, ‘Sickert in Dieppe: The Art of Modern Life’ at Pallant House Gallery, Chichester in 2015.

It was via Dieppe that Sickert maintained his connection to European culture and contemporary French painting, setting him apart from his peers in Britain. His subjects in Dieppe ranged widely, capturing all aspects of life in the town - its harbour, fishing trade, shops and cafés as well as the rural surrounding area. They reveal the influence of Sickert’s acquaintance with Degas, and through him, the ideas of the Impressionists.

Dieppe’s architecture was one recurring theme in Sickert’s pictures, especially its cloistered streets and the town’s cathedral, St Jacques, which the artist painted in a superb series echoing that of Monet’s Rouen Cathedral. In the present example, St Jacques is glimpsed to the left, while the surrounding buildings are bathed in dappled light, which Sickert captures with swift, painterly brushwork.