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Lot Essay
By the Seaside is a charming celebration of a family day at the beach, as Roberts presents the joyful and familiar sight of British holidaymakers enjoying the summer weather. Whilst Roberts initially intended to train as a poster designer, his encounters with Post-Impressionism and Cubism at St Martins School of Art and the Slade, as well as his later travels in France and Italy, steered him firmly in another direction. Upon his return to the UK, he worked briefly at the Omega workshops, before becoming involved in the Vorticist movement, an artistic response to the First World War which championed hard-edged abstraction. It was following his distressing experiences in the war, when he served both in the Royal Artillery and as an official war artist, that he returned to figuration, and developed the instantly recognisable style we see exemplified here.
Throughout his career, Roberts was frequently drawn to scenes of regular people going about their daily lives. In particular, he favoured lively and optimistic vistas of people at leisure, whether playing games, musical instruments, or sunbathing as the smiling couple depicted in By the Seaside are doing. The seaside was a subject he revisited a number of times, including in his 1966 work The Seaside (Arts Council Collection, London). In the present work, we see a mother and father rendered in bright colours, lounging in the sun alongside their baby. Here, we see typified the stylised, sculptural figures, which populated the works of Roberts’ later years; their rounded forms rendered in a manner reminiscent of Léger’s ‘Tubism’. Striking in its colourful composition, Roberts uses the rolling coastline and strong graphic lines of the figures’ limbs to create a sense of rhythm and movement across the painting. Roberts exhibited paintings annually at the Royal Academy from the 1950s until his death, including By the Seaside; a cheerful addition to the 1977 Summer Exhibition.
We are grateful to David Cleall and Bob Davenport for their assistance in cataloguing this lot.
Throughout his career, Roberts was frequently drawn to scenes of regular people going about their daily lives. In particular, he favoured lively and optimistic vistas of people at leisure, whether playing games, musical instruments, or sunbathing as the smiling couple depicted in By the Seaside are doing. The seaside was a subject he revisited a number of times, including in his 1966 work The Seaside (Arts Council Collection, London). In the present work, we see a mother and father rendered in bright colours, lounging in the sun alongside their baby. Here, we see typified the stylised, sculptural figures, which populated the works of Roberts’ later years; their rounded forms rendered in a manner reminiscent of Léger’s ‘Tubism’. Striking in its colourful composition, Roberts uses the rolling coastline and strong graphic lines of the figures’ limbs to create a sense of rhythm and movement across the painting. Roberts exhibited paintings annually at the Royal Academy from the 1950s until his death, including By the Seaside; a cheerful addition to the 1977 Summer Exhibition.
We are grateful to David Cleall and Bob Davenport for their assistance in cataloguing this lot.