Signed with monogram l.l.: W.B.

Oil on canvas, 23 by 34.5 cm

Bayes’s exhibits at the first Camden Town Group exhibitions in 1911 received significant critical attention, The Daily Telegraph critic noting in December of that year “There is something satisfying in the austere modernity of Mr Walter Bayes…. He is able to suggest beneath the aerial envelope, beneath the perpetually changing vesture of the earth, something of architectural structure, of permanence” (The Daily Telegraph, 14 December 1911, quoted in Wendy Baron, The Camden Town Group, Scolar Press, 1979, p.214). Critics went on to label Bayes as both a “Modernist” for the simplification of form (something in evidence in this painting) and a “Classicist” in respect of his concern for rhythm and design. The latter of these ultimately set him apart from other members of the Camden Town Group. Elegant coastal subjects formed a significant part of the body of work he created at this date, including works such as The Glass Door which was shown at the Second Camden Town Group Exhibition in December 1911 (no.51).  One of his favourite locations were the beaches at or near Locquirec in Brittany where Bayes regularly holidayed with his family during the 1910s. It is possible this picture depicts the same section of an estuary beach depicted in his painting Two Men on a Beach (Ashmolean Museum, acc.no.WA.1967.36.2), which is thought to have been painted just before the First World War.