Notes

It not surprising at all that Helen Entwisle’s biography of Dorothea Sharp, one of England’s most renowned impressionist artists, is entitled Rock Pools and Sunshine (William Sessions, 2008). ‘I was overwhelmed by the happy, colourful beach scenes,’¹ the author said, and the present lot is one such painting, of barefooted children on their summer holiday, an older sister carrying her naked baby sibling along a coastal jetty while two others trail behind. Sharp travelled to Europe regularly and in Paris was impressed with the legacy of the French Impressionists. The work of Claude Monet proved to be a lasting influence and her spontaneous painterly technique in this lot is reminiscent of Monet’s Woman with a Parasol (1875), which depicts the artist’s wife Camille and their son Jean on a windy hillock at Argenteuil on the Seine, near Paris. The palette of crisp whites and cool blues and greens are similar in the two paintings, and each is enlivened by a pop of yellow – in Sharp’s boy’s shorts and Monet’s meadow meadow flowers.

1. https://helenentwisle.co.uk/

Provenance

Sotheby's, London, Modern and Irish Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture, 20 June 1993, lot 5.