Open Edition Marine Art
Montague Dawson: 'Racing Home - The Cutty Sark'
Open Edition Marine Prints by Montague Dawson and Roy Cross. Affordable, large-scale prints by two of the premier 20th-century marine artists.
Montague Dawson Born in Chiswick, West London, Montague Dawson became perhaps the greatest painter of the sea and sailing ships of the first part of the 20h century. His original paintings are scarce and extremely expensive and many of the original 20th century signed colour prints are now faded, lost or damaged.
His father and grandfather were both marine painters and this maritime background was reinforced when, early in his life, his family moved to Smugglers House on Southampton Water, on England's south coast. Dawson never went to art school but, around 1910, he joined a commercial art studio in London, working on posters and illustrations.
Joining the Royal Navy at the outbreak of the First World War, Dawson met Charles Napier Hemy who was to have a great influence on the young man's art.
Dawson had supplied illustrations to the Sphere magazine during the First World War and after the war set up as a painter and illustrator. He concentrated on historical subjects and sailing ships, usually under full sail on the deep ocean. He achieved great commercial success starting in the 1920's, showing at the Royal Academy from 1916 to 1936 and regularly at the Royal Society of Marine Artists, of which he was a member.
Dawson moved to Milford-on-sea in Hampshire in the 1930's. In the Second World War he illustrated events of the war for the Sphere and afterwards continued a painting career that was financially one of the most successful of the 20th century, dying in Sussex in 1973.
Roy Cross's interest in marine art began when accompanying his father on walks around the London docks, sketching the boats he had seen when returning home. Aged 15, he began to work for a Thameside shipping office. Here he saw Thames barges and the last of the sailing coasters, and thus in the 1930s was born his lasting love of sea and ships.
After training at the St. Martins School of Fine Art, Roy Cross's artistic career became established as an illustrator in numerous fields for journals and books. During the Second World War he illustrated air force maintenance books and pilots’ manuals, as well as publications such as 'Aeroplane' and 'Aviation Week'. His detailed drawing of the Gloster Meteor, Britain's first service jet fighter, took him eight weeks to create, was a yard in length, and became acknowledged as a masterpiece of this specialised branch of technical illustration. In addition he exhibited his work at the Society of Aviation Artists, of which he is also a member.
After the war, Roy Cross produced illustrations for the tops of the Airfix model boxes which are remembered by generations of children today. However, as an illustrator, he felt restricted by the limiting factors of commercial art and longed for greater freedom of expression.
He decided thus to concentrate primarily upon marine painting and he was immediately successful. Elected a Member of the Royal Society of Marine Artists in 1977, his art covers clipper ships to Mississippi steamboats, warships to commercial steam vessels and Royal Yachts to Americas Cup contenders. The combination of research, the practical application of this knowledge and the love of his subjects has its rewards, as Roy Cross is considered by many to be the most accurate painter of historical marine vessels of all time.
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