Hastings Contemporary is delighted to share this exciting news that a lost painting of Ravilious, last seen in 1939, is set to be unveiled at on May 27, when the gallery re-opens after lockdown with a spectacular new show “Seaside Modern : Art and Life on the Beach”.
This radiant watercolour was for many years thought to be missing, when it was in fact hanging quietly in a collector’s home since 1939 when it was sold for 15 guineas by Arthur Tooth and Sons. “Mackerel Sky” belongs to a private collector, who very generously loaned it to the exhibition “Seaside Modern” when hearing of the curator’s search for Ravilious works.
The label (on the painting above) says “Eric Ravilious (1903-42), Mackerel Sky, 1938, Watercolour and pencil on paper”.
Marking the beginning of summer, and the hopeful and happy return to a better way of life, this exciting exhibition of more than sixty artists and designers works will look at the broader social and cultural phenomenon of the British heading to the beach in ever greater numbers.
A spectacular show in shoreline gallery
A cornucopia of visual mastery awaits our audiences in Hastings, including paintings, sculptures and drawings produced by many of the most revered artists of the 20th century such as L.S. Lowry, Paul Nash, Laura Knight, William Roberts, Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth. These exceptional talents are drawn together by special guest, British curator James Russell, to create a spectacular new show in the historic shoreline gallery.
“Seaside Modern” exhibition draws together a remarkably large group of artists, reflecting the ‘Genuine Artistic Moment’ of a fifty-year period in the 20th century, during which artists were drawn to the beach, but for varying reasons and with very different results. The views of the beach and coast are produced in different styles and convey different moods and psychological states of mind.
 Works of traditional subjects including fishermen, boats and the harbour are presented by Eric Ravilious, John Minton and Prunella Clough, and there are experimental works, which draw inspiration from the strangeness of the shore, with works produced by John Nash, Edith Rimmington, Eileen Agar and Bill Brandt.
www.hastingscontemporary.org/exhibition/seaside-modern-art-and-life-on-the-beach-2
Tickets on sale soon from the website.
Image Credits: Hastings Contemporary .