Philip Wilson Steer 1860-1942
Provenance
The Artist;His sale, Christie’s, London, 16 July 1942, lot 121, as Three Bathers on the Sands;
To Helen Lessore, Beaux Arts Gallery, London;
Their sale to Henry Talbot De Vere Clifton, on long-term loan to the Ministry of Works (Foreign Office), 1960s;
His sale, Sotheby’s, London, 15 December 1971, lot 22, as A Summer’s Evening: Three Bathers on the Sands;
To the Fine Art Society, London;
Private collection by 1974 and thence by descent;
Sotheby’s, London, 21 July 2005, lot 19;
Private Collection;
Private Collection (purchased from the above, February 2019)
Exhibitions
London, New English Art Club, April-May 1888, no. 78;
Brussels, Les XX, 1889, no. Steer I (as Soir d’Eté)
Munich, Glaspalast, 1891 (as Im Bad);
London, Royal Academy, Impressionism - Its Masters, its Precursors and its Influence in Britain, 1974, no. 132;
London, Royal Academy, Post-Impressionism, November – March 1980, no. 345;
London, Browse & Darby, Philip Wilson Steer, 1985, no. 3;
London, Tate, Exposed: The Victorian Nude, 2000-01, no. 182
Literature
‘The Pictures of 1888 – New English Art Club’, Pall Mall Gazette ‘Extra’, 1888, p. 83 (illus.)
‘Art Exhibitions’, The Times, 9 April 1888, p. 4
‘Notes on Current Topics’, Yorkshire Post, 9 April 1888, p. 4
‘New English Art Club’, The Morning Post, 11 April 1888, p. 7
‘New English Art Club’, Pall Mall Gazette, 11 April 1888, p. 5
‘New English Art Club’, The Building News, 13 April 1888, p. 522
‘London Correspondence’, Newcastle Courant, 13 April 1888, p. 2
‘The New English Art Club’, The Saturday Review, 14 April 1888, p. 443
‘New English Art Club’, John Bull, 14 April 1888, p. 288
‘New English Art Club’, The Graphic, 14 April 1888, p. 394
‘New English Art Club’, Evening Standard, 16 April 188, p. 3
‘Some Spring Exhibitions’, St James’s Gazette, 18 April 1888, p. 5
‘London Art Notes’, Manchester Courier, 17 April 1888 p. 8
‘New English Art Club’, Daily Telegraph, 19 April 1888
‘Our Ladies’ Column’, Bromley Journal and West Kent Herald, 20 April 1888, p. 3 – syndicated to West London Observer, Gravesend Journal, Hawick Express, Moray and Nairn Express, Western Times and other sources.
‘New English Art Club’, Illustrated London News, 21 April 1888, p. 425
‘Exhibition at the New English Art Club’, The Queen, 21 April 1888, p. 491
‘Letter to the Ladies’, Dundee Evening Telegraph, 21 April 1888, p. 2
‘Ladies Column’, Wrexham Advertiser, 21 April 1888, p. 2
‘Current Topics’, Essex Herald, 24 April 1888, p. 5
‘Art Exhibitions’, Truth, 3 May 1888, p. 20
‘Art Notes’, The Magazine of Art, 1888, ‘Art Notes’, p. xxx
· See Appendix - New English Art Club Press Cuttings, vol 2, 1888
‘Le Salon des Vingt’, Indépendance Belge, 4 Février 1889, p. 3
‘Le Salon des Vingt’, Le Courrier de l’Escaut, 12 Février 1889, p. 3
L’Eventail, 2 Février 1889; as quoted in Laughton 1967 (below)
Hugh Blaker, ‘Mr Wilson Steer’, The Art Journal, 1906, p. 236
D.S.MacColl, Life, Work & Setting of Philip Wilson Steer, 1945 (Faber & Faber, London), p.190
Bruce Laughton, ‘The British and American Contribution to Les XX, 1884-9’, Apollo, November 1967, p.374
Bruce Laughton, ‘Steer & French Painting’, Apollo, March 1970, p.212, (illus in colour, pl.vi)
Bruce Laughton, Philip Wilson Steer 1860-1942, 1971 (Clarendon Press, Oxford), pp.14-17, 40, (cat.no.36, illus in colour, pl.25)
John House, Introd, Impressionism, 1974, no.132 (exhibition catalogue, Royal Academy of Arts, London)
Alan Bowness, Introd., Post-Impressionism, 1980, no. 345, (exhibition catalogue, Royal Academy, London, entry by Anna Gruetzner, illus.)
Jane Munro, ‘Introduction’, in, Philip Wilson Steer 1860-1942: Paintings and Watercolours, 1986 (exhibition catalogue, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge) p.13, (illus.)
Kenneth McConkey, British Impressionism, 1989 (Phaidon, Oxford), pp.81,84,85,89,97 & 153, (illus. in colour pl.78, p.82)
Kenneth McConkey, Impressionism in Britain, 1995 (Yale University Press & Barbican Art Gallery, London), pp.46-47
Ysanne Holt, British Artists & the Modernist Landscape, 2003, (Ashgate Publishing, Aldershot), p. 32
Kenneth McConkey, The New English, A History of the New English Art Club, 2006 (Royal Academy Publications), p. 48 (illus.)
Anna Gruetzner Robins, A Fragile Modernism, Whistler and his Impressionist Followers, 2007 (Yale University Press), pp. 115, 116 (illus.)
Cicely Robinson ed., Henry Scott Tuke, 2022, (Yale University Press), pp. 77-8 (illus.)Further contemporary press cuttings (1888) preserved in the New English Art Club Press Cuttings, vol. 2, Tate Archive (TGA 7310.2). For full bibliographic discussion see K. McConkey 2006, pp. 48–9, 70 (notes 12–15).
