Signed l.r.: Olsson

Oil on canvas, 18 by 23 1/2 ins (46 by 59.5 cm)

Olsson was one of the greatest seascape painters from the turn of the twentieth century and a central member of the St Ives community of artists. Other influences were painters of Sweden (from where his family originally came) and Whistler whom he encountered as a fellow member of the Royal Society of British Artists in the later nineteenth century. It is those latter two influences that can be gleaned in the style of this serene seascape. Unlike his stormy depictions of the English channel, the present work focuses on the abstract plays of rich colour between the orange sky and the calm blue waters beneath, recalling something of the Symbolist character of Swedish landscape painting of the same period.