Walter Frederick Osborne, R.H.A

Christie's, London, 24 October 1988, lot 39;
Taylor Gallery, London, where purchased by the present owner in 1997

London, Barbican Art Gallery, Impressionism in Britain, 1995, no.162, with tour to Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin;
Dublin, Hugh Lane Gallery, Loan Exhibition, 1997-2015

The panel appears sound, slightly bowed. There is a faint craquelure pattern predominantly to the darker areas of pigment, which appears stable. Overall the work appears in good condition, ready to hang. Ultraviolet light reveals flecks of retouching corresponding to the areas of craquelure as mentioned above. Held in a gilt plaster frame.
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‘One of the outstanding features of Osborne’s work is his technical mastery – he worked confidently and competently in oil, water colour, pastel and pencil. In his oils alone he had a remarkable range…’
Jeanne Sheehy, Walter Osborne (1983), p.66  

With its atmospheric light, square brushwork and modern subject matter, Hastings Railway Station encapsulates the artistic principles that distinguished Walter Osborne as one of the most significant and influential artists of his generation. Dating from circa 1890, it was with works such as the present that Osborne revealed the modern painting methods developing in France to an Irish audience.

In taking the hustle and bustle of the station as its subject, the painting is a rare example of the artist focussing on urban rather than rural life. This transition echoes the new direction Claude Monet took ten years or so earlier when eager to be considered a painter of modern life, akin to Manet, Degas and Caillebotte, he began his series of works of the The Saint-Lazare Station, Paris in 1877 (see examples in the National Gallery, London and Musée d'Orsay, Paris). Like Monet, Osborne was clearly motivated by the challenges the subject matter presented and for an artist with a keen sensibility to atmosphere and the effects of light, the railway station provided an ideal subject. He injects flashes of light on the platform and highlights the golden walls of the houses beyond the station, while clouds of steam rise from the train. The primary concern is clearly with colour and light and in this regard, the painting distinguishes Osborne from his contemporaries who, largely inspired by the Naturalist palette of Jules Bastien-Lepage, employed cool, tonal colours. Hastings Railway Station unites modern life with modern painting ideals and as such, is a defining image of British Impressionism which wonderfully evokes a bygone era. 

From 1884 to circa 1891, Osborne spent part of each year painting in small towns and villages in the English countryside, often in the company of fellow artists such as Nathaniel Hill, Edward Stott and Blandford Fletcher. Around 1890-91 Osborne had been staying near Rye and Hastings, along the East Sussex coast, when he likely painted the present work. Another accomplished picture from the period is Osborne's Punch and Judy on the Sands, Hastings, 1891, in the National Gallery of Ireland collection (where it is known as A View of Hastings.) Hastings Railway Station is one of the last pictures Osborne painted in England before returning to Ireland, where he became a highly respected teacher at the Academy Schools until the end of his life. That he was held in such high regard is easy to understand with the present painting - one in which Osborne proves himself a master of his generation.