John Atkinson Grimshaw

The present work is a fine example of John Atkinson Grimshaw’s well-known and highly sought after atmospheric views of Liverpool from his later period. The docks of the city were a favourite subject for Grimshaw who painted a number of pictures in the 1880s which take their subject from the Merseyside waterfront. In 1885 he exhibited a view of Salthouse Docks at the Royal Academy which the Art Journal reviewed favourably, stating that Grimshaw 'invests the subject with something akin to poetry.' Grimshaw's dock scenes were in such demand that one collector in Liverpool named Jackson told the artist that he would buy as many pictures as could be painted. Views of Liverpool were also popular with American collectors who bought them as memories of the Transatlantic voyages that took them from these docks.