Montague Dawson

British, 1895 - 1973

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Montague Dawson Is widely considered the best known sea painter of the 20th Century, and one of the most skilled craftsman in the direct line of English marine artists. He is noted for his unerringly beautiful ships, the weight and surging power of his waves and the scudding grace of his skies. In a painting by Dawson, the elements and the ships are one, united in a harmony of motion and color which immediately rings true. Dawson was born in Chiswick, England, the son of an enthusiastic Thames yachtsman and grandson of noted English landscape painter Henry Dawson. Early in his life the Dawson family moved to Southampton where he spent his time fishing, sailing and watching the great ships of the world anchoring in the harbor. As a young naval officer during WWI, he met and was greatly influenced by English artist C. Napier Hemy and would spend the remainder of his life as a professional painter and illustrator. Today works by Montague Dawson grace the private collections of royalty and presidents as well as important museums worldwide. His reputation as "the King of the Clipper Ship Artists" has penetrated into every part of the civilized world. He was a master of his genre, the like of which we may never see again.
Montague Dawson Paintings
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(1895-1973) Montague Dawson is one of the most renowned painters of the modern British school of marine painting. He was born in London, the third generation of his family to become a painter, eventually becoming known as "the king of the clipper-ship school." Dawson's father, engineer and yachtsman Henry Thomas Dawson (fl. 1860-73) and grandfather, Henry Dawson (1811-1878), exhibited at the British Institution and the Royal Academy. Montague Dawson never attended art school but worked at a commercial art studio in London from 1910 until the outbreak of World War I. During the war he was an officer with the Royal Navy and made illustrations for the Sphere. After the war Dawson embarked on a career as a painter and illustrator of historical subjects and sailing ships. In 1920 he contracted to art dealers Frost & Reed, who handled his entire body of work and made reproductions of some of it. During World War II he again worked for the Sphere illustrating war scenes. He exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1917 to 1936 and at the Society of Marine Artists from 1946 to 1964. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. Dawson's work is widely collected and is found in the collections of the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich; the Royal Naval Museum, Portsmouth; and the National Gallery in London, England; and in the U.S. at the Mystic Seaport Museum and the Mariner's Museum.Biography courtesy of Roger King Gallery of Fine Art.
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