Lot 426: WILLIAM STOTT OF OLDHAM 1957-1900

signed on the recto l.l.: WILLIAM - STOTT OF OLDHAM -; titled and signed on the verso: Sandpools. / WILLIAM-STOTT of OLDHAM.

coloured chalks on paper

26 by 33 cm., 10 by 13 in.

Oldham, Gallery Oldham, William Stott of Oldham 1857-1900; A Comet Rushing to the Sun, 2003, no. 24

Roger Brown, William Stott of Oldham 1857-1900; A Comet Rushing to the Sun, 2003, exhibition catalogue for Gallery Oldham, repr. pg. 78

From 1882 Stott rented a house and studio at Ravenglass on the Cumbrian coast. It was a place he was to return to again and again to find solace and inspiration and where, until his premature death in 1900, he was to produce numerous subject-less, empty vistas of sand, sea and sky.

William Stott's inspiration for these shoreline landscapes and seascapes came from his two artistic mentors Edgar Degas and James McNeill Whistler. Both Degas and Whistler had spent time on the Normandy coast sketching the changing moods and colours of the coastline. What mattered to them in these landscapes was not topographical exactitude, but the effects of light and atmosphere with colour.

Stott's shoreline landscapes were all done within a mile of his house at Ravenglass. He made no attempt to identify the locations as they are of little importance to him. What he is attempting in these exquisite, highly sensitive pastels is to record the ever changing harmonies and moods of nature. Stott is seeking beauty in form and light and colour and at times his work achieves a poetic and almost abstract quality


Sandpools was produced in 1885 as a preliminary study for A Summer's Day (Manchester Art Gallery) which was shown at the Paris Salon the following year.

We are very grateful to Roger Brown for writing this footnote.