Piano Nobile has loaned a Walter Sickert painting, Celebrations, Dieppe, 1911-14, to Pallant House Gallery's exhibition, Sickert in Dieppe, curated by Katy Norris. Walter Sickert (1860-1942) had a sustained fascination with the fashionable seaside resort of Dieppe in France. 'Sickert in Dieppe' demonstrates the artist's vivid interest in everyday life in Dieppe, to which he was a regular visitor for over four decades and a permanent resident from 1898-1905.
Over 80 paintings, prints, preparatory drawings and etchings show Sickert's breadth of subject matter - the town's architecture, harbour and fishing quarter, shops, café culture and inhabitants - whilst charting the development of his pictorial technique during this period. It shows the importance of the personal and professional relationships he made in Dieppe, including European artists such as Degas, Whistler and the Impressionists.
Celebrations, Dieppe was originally dated 1911 by its first owner but reattributed by Sickert specialist Wendy Baron to 1914. The motif of a fluttering Union Jack alongside the Tricolore perhaps shows the moment, on 4 August 1914, when Britain joined Russia and France in declaring war on Germany. The palette, in particular the opposition of lilac and pale yellow, accented by vivid touches on emerald green, vermillion and royal blue; the fresh clean paint surface; and the sharp definition, all point to a date of 1913 or 1914.
The exhibition is on at Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, until 4th October. Read more about the exhibition here and the painting here.
