Marine painter Montague Dawson (1895–1973) (200 works)

16 January 2013

10 222

Category: Art and hand-drawn graphics, 0+

The son of a marine engineer and an avid yachtsman, the grandson of the famous marine painter Henry Dawson (1811-1878), the future legendary marine painter Montagu Dawson was born in London in 1895. After the First World War, Montague Dawson had already fully established himself as a professional marine painter with his own style, handwriting and passions. He completely “found himself” in the depiction of famous sailing ships and tea clippers on the high seas. Looking at Dawson’s paintings, the old sailing sea wolves could unmistakably determine at what latitude, what ocean, what time of year this or that ship is depicted - this is the scrupulous accuracy with which the artist depicted the color of the sky and water inherent in this particular place.

Dawson could depict sailboats like no one else. He alone seemed to have achieved the ability to paint a ship under the pressure of wind-blown sails and place it in the water with amazing precision and ease. Of course, in the last years of his life, and especially after his death, imitators appeared and continue to appear, who try to paint their paintings “like Dawson.” Some people do it better, some do it worse, but all of this, of course, is not Dawson...

The artist did not achieve his inimitable style of painting suddenly. For ten years after the First World War, Dawson meticulously honed his technique. He made it his goal to paint the sea in a way that no other artist had been able to do before: clearly and truthfully. He wanted to show all the shades of light on the water at a given time of day and at a given geographical latitude, and at the same time show the sky and light through the water. Thanks to his tireless search, Dawson achieved what he wanted. Orders appeared from both serious art collectors and sailing enthusiasts.
Winner of numerous awards and titles, an honorary member of the most prestigious art societies in Great Britain, Montague Dawson honestly deserved his title of “The most famous marine painter of the twentieth century.”
The artist died in 1973.