Arthur Joseph Gaskin

Mrs Margaret Dennery, the artist's daugher;
Martyn Gregory, London

Birmingham Art Gallery, 1982, no.C48;
London, Martyn Gregory, English Watercolours and Drawings, no.45.

The sheet appears to be laid down about the edges, cockles slightly; otherwise appears in good overall condition. Held under glass in a dark stained wood frame with a cream mount; unexamined out of frame.
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This delightful moonlit roofscape at the back of 13 Calthorpe Road, Birmingham was painted by Gaskin in May 1924. The artist's later style brings together the influences of his earlier artistic career, where he admired the light and colour used by the Newlyn School of painters, and when he was introduced to William Morris and Edward Coley Burne-Jones, in the 1890s, who persuaded him to work in a more linear style and expand his interest in the Arts and Craft movement. His illustrative subjects also pay homage to Gaskin's close friend, the artist Joseph Southall, who he met at Birmingham School of Art. The small tile scale of the present work is likely to relate to a personal non-commercial design.

In 1924 Gaskin retired from being headmaster of the Vittoria Street School for Jewellers and Silversmiths, a position he had held since 1903. He moved with his wife from Birmingham to Chipping Campden, and Back of 13 Calthorpe Road, Moonlight recalls one of his last moments in Birmingham, capturing a timeless and beautiful evening vista.