At the Seaside

Location

Country: USA
City: New York
Place: UK Mission to the United Nations

This relaxed scene at Grenville, northwestern France, showing seaside leisure pursuits, was painted at a time when bathing in the sea, rather than just enjoying the social arena of the beach, had become an acceptable leisure activity. The painting demonstrates the influence of Continental styles, particularly Impressionism and the beach scenes of French artist Eugène Louis Boudin (1824-1898).

However, when it was exhibited by Hunt under the title 'Sur la Plage, Grenville', at the winter exhibition of the Society of British Artists, London, in 1886, a reviewer writing for 'The Atheneum' commented:

Mr. E. A. Hunt exhibits in Sur la Plage, Grenville (237), a rather cleverly painted collection of ladies' figures clad in gay- coloured and sparkling dresses on the seashore, in a soft, vaporous, sunlit effect. Mr. Hunt might have learnt to do better if he had imitated modern French art with care, taste, and self-restraint not manifest here.

Hunt painted numerous coastal scenes, including views in New England, Massachusetts; Honfleur, northwestern France; and Sussex, England.

Edmund Aubrey Hunt was born near Boston, USA, the son of a manufacturer. After leaving school he travelled to Paris. He trained at the Ecole des Beaux Arts and under Jean-Léon Gérôme. He travelled through England, Holland, Belgium and Italy and, by 1879, had relocated to London. He exhibited in London and Boston and frequently returned to the USA. Returning from one USA excursion, he survived the sinking of his ship. He became an associate of Whistler’s. In the 1880s he made trips to Tangiers, later moving there and painting local people, land and seascapes. After more than a decade, he returned to the UK, living first in Hemingford Grey, Cambridgeshire, and later at Rye, Sussex. During the war he moved to Hastings, where he died, aged 67.

Places

Subjects

bathing, travel & tourism, seascape/coastal scene, Victorian Genre, dog, hill, beach, man, woman, 19th century costume, dress, swimming costume, parasol, bonnet, child, hut

Materials & Techniques

canvas, oil, oil painting

Artist

Edmund Aubrey Hunt (1855 - 1922)

Title

At the Seaside

Date

1886

Medium

Oil on canvas

Dimensions

height: 101.00 cm, width: 130.00 cm

Acquisition

Purchased from Sir Bruce Ingram, September 1963

Inscription

Signed and dated 'E Aubrey Hunt / 86'

Provenance

Collection of journalist and newspaper editor Sir Bruce Stirling Ingram (1877-1963); from whom purchased by the Ministry of Works in September 1963

GAC number

5587