158 - Albert Goodwin, RWS,

Albert Goodwin, RWS, British 1845-1932- Evening, St Hilda's Abbey, Whitby, Yorkshire; pencil, pen, grey ink, and watercolour heightened with scratching out on paper, signed and dated 'Albert Goodwin. /94' (lower right) and inscribed twice 'Whitby' (lower left), held in the original Foord & Dickinson frame, 60.5 x 86 cm. Provenance: Anonymous sale; Christie's, London, 14 March 1997, lot 27. where acquired by Hammond Smith, Leicester. Jack Chinery Briggs, Yorkshire. with Laurence Oxley, Hants, where acquired by the present owner. Private Collection, UK. Exhibited: London, The Royal Watercolour Society, 1894, no. 34, pl. 29. Note: Goodwin was a prominent landscape painter who worked principally in watercolours. He was influenced by the Pre-Raphaelite approach of Ford Madox Brown (1821-1893) and Arthur Hughes (1832-1915), under whom he studied. As well as producing a number of watercolours during his extensive travels, he was heavily inspired by the British landscape and returned to the subject repeatedly. Goodwin's paintings reveal the undeniable influence of J.M.W. Turner (1775-1851), particularly in the artist's confident use of colour and light to produce works which are strikingly atmospheric. Whitby was a favourite subject of Goodwin's, with the artist writing on 22 July 1909: 'Whitby once again... I am again inclined to repeat myself in the belief that one or two things in it (for colour) are as good as anything can be.' (The Diary of Albert Goodwin, R.W.S. (1883-1927), London, 1934, p. 116). Whitby abbey was founded by St. Hilda in 657 and destroyed by the Danes in 867. The ruin as we see it now belongs essentially to the 13th century. In 1830 one of the towers collapsed and the Abbey today looks just as it does in the watercolour.