Lot 38: James Dickson Innes (1887-1914)

Mountains and Lake, Wales
signed with initials 'J.D.I.' (lower right)
oil on panel
9 x 13 in. (22.8 x 33 cm.)
Painted circa 1912-13.

Euphemia Lamb, and by descent.

John Fothergill, a personal friend and contemporary of Innes, remarked about the artist, 'At best he was a lone star. He seems to have followed no one and no one has followed him, though he had an effect upon Augustus John's landscape and still more upon Derwent Lees, who by his early death fell unripe. Being unable to adopt a recognised style he had to make one of his own, and, impelled by the knowledge that he hadn't long to live, he was in a hurry. Earlier he had worked with the same charming leisure with which he walked and talked, but latterly, I was told, he angrily regretted all that work as wasted time and began to paint at top speed. In much of his work he used oils as if they were watercolours, and in order to relieve the leaden effect, he invented, for I do not know of a precedent, a method of super-imposing coarse washes and spots of another colour, without material significance, as a means of giving life and sparkle. For bright colour he is, I think, supreme amongst English landscape painters. One day there may come a kindred soul able to see the end that this extraordinary and independent young man has pointed and get nearer to it' (see L. Browse (ed.), James Dickson Innes, London, 1946, p. 12).

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