Painted towards the end of the Second World War, this peaceful view of pleasure boats on the Thames presents Duncan Grant at his most lyrical.

This landscape was completed during a year of unrest and turbulence both internationally and personally for Grant; the arrival of ‘doodlebugs’ had caused widespread terror across the country, and at home Grant’s partner, Vanessa Bell, was recovering from a malignant tumour.[1] Despite the volatile global climate, Grant remained committed to his work and produced paintings of striking variation. Alongside landscape works, of which the present work is a classic example, Grant also worked on a series of murals for Berwick Church and in 1944 oversaw the publication of a book on his life and work as part of The Penguin Modern Painters series.

Throughout the war, many British modernists turned their attention to compositions that reflected the general population’s anxiety and fear; Paul Nash chronicled the destructions of war through surreal arrangements, Laura Knight recorded its realities in painstaking detail and Graham Sutherland painted bomb-damaged landscapes throughout Wales and England. Grant, however, remained largely steadfast in his depiction of peace and harmony. His stance as a committed conscious objector is reflected throughout his artistic practice during the Second World War and remains apparent in the present work. In 1930, Roger Fry noted the ‘lyrical joyousness of mood' in Grant’s work – a quality that he maintained throughout his career. This landscape typifies Grant’s dedication to peaceful subjects and harmonious compositions, the meandering river drawing the eye appropriately into the far distance.

This tranquil landscape shares many similarities with Monet’s Bathers at La Grenouillère, in the collection of the National Gallery, London. The truncated cropping of the boats in the foreground echoes the composition, and the behaviour of transient light is central to both paintings. Grant remained a committed champion of post-impressionism, however, a few of his landscapes throughout the 1940s allude to the influences of the impressionists, perhaps suggesting a nostalgic resurgence during a time of conflict.

When this work was sold at auction in 2014, it was accompanied by a letter from the artist in praise of Philip John Whitten, dated 24 May 1957. Whitten was an artist and later a potter whose friendship with Grant evidently influenced his own artistic practice.[2]

Whitten was also a teacher at Eastbourne School of Art, Sussex, and exhibited both locally and in London. He purportedly bought this work after viewing it at the Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne in 1951.

[1] F. Spaulding, Duncan Grant: A Biography. London: Chatto & Windus, 1997, p.391.

[2] See Philip John Whitten’s Puerto Pollensa, Majorca 1966 [accessed 20.07.2023] Available online: https://artuk.org/discover/artists/whitten-philip-john-b-1922-51583