Harry Watson, R.W.S., R.O.I. 1871-1836

London, Richard Green;

Private collection

Harry Watson is best known for his landscape studies in watercolour and in oil, painted in Scotland, Wales and France. However, he also made occasional forays into figurative painting, The Garden Party being by far the most exquisite and ambitious work of this type to have been offered at auction in recent history.

Harry Watson was born in Scarborough on the 13th of June 1871 and educated locally until his family immigrated to Canada in 1881 and made their home in Winnipeg for the next two years. At the age of twelve, the Watsons returned to Scarborough and young Harry was enrolled at the local art school, which he attended between 1884 and 1888. A year after his graduation, he was awarded a scholarship to the Royal College of Art in London, which he attended between 1889 to 1894 and where he won the much coveted travelling scholarship. He also spent some time at the Lambeth School of Art and lived at 37 Guildford Street in Lambeth, from where he exhibited his first works at the Royal Academy in 1894, entitled In Sweet September, Wanderers and By the Side of an Old Dyke.

The setting for The Garden Party is the sunlit corner of a garden in the full bloom of early summer, where three children find shade amongst the dappled light of the trees. A majestic bed of saffron-hued lilies is illuminated by the golden sunlight, which dances through the composition as it glimmers through the leaves overhead. A cloth has been laid out upon the grass and tea cups, oranges and a plate of Victoria sponge cake brought out from the kitchen, so that no minute of the sunshine is missed. A pretty blonde girl, her younger sister and their attentive brother sit quietly in the shade each lost in their thoughts. It is tempting to speculate that they are each thinking about the last slice of cake which sits temptingly on the porcelain plate and looks so much more alluring to young eyes than the orange which has been carelessly pushed aside. The makeshift picnic is presumably an interlude between children's games, two balls put aside temporarily whilst energies are refreshed. The idyllic scene of harmony and youthful repose, creates an atmosphere of calm and tranquillity, whilst the brightness of the glorious colouring captures the heat and shimmer of the midday sun.

The theme of tranquil absorption and of outdoor relaxation is reminiscent of the less formal work of John Singer Sargent, who posed models and friends upon the grass taking tea or enjoying a picnic, to capture the effects of bright sunlight refracted through trees. Pictures such as The Pink Dress (private collection) and the watercolour A Siesta (whereabouts unknown) demonstrate Sargent’s interest in painting figures out of doors in dappled light. The most pertinent comparison can be drawn between Watson’s picture and Sargent’s famous image of childhood Carnation, Lily, Lily Rose of 1887 (Tate Britain, London), both pictures depicting the vibrancy of youth emphasised by the glory of colour and light. There is a similar looseness of brushstroke and voluptuousness of full-bodied colour and it is likely that, like many young contemporary artists, the effect of Sargent's works was greatly influential upon that of Watson. The Impressionistic palette and use of colour in The Garden Party, is also highly representative of a new and vital approach to figurative painting in the early Twentieth Century, which is both sophisticated and delightfully subtle.

The Garden Party is a very different image of childhood to those painted by the generation of Victorians before Watson, who depicted a rather sentimental view of youth. Compared with the work of contemporary artists like Arthur John Elsley or Fred Morgan who painted a charming and purposefully saccharine notion of cherubic childhood, Watson’s image appears far more modern, relaxed and true to life. Watson here depicts children, glimpsed as they really were, when the exhaustion of endless and complicated games left them laid out on the grass quietly reading and idly dreaming.