Sandy Bastion
Sir William Russell Flint
P.R.A., P.R.W.S., R.S.W., R.O.I., R.E.
signed 'W Russell Flint';
Image size:- 19.75 x 26.5 in.
Watercolour
sold 01/05/2008
£ 120,500
Born in 1880, William Russell Flint gained his early artistic training as a lithographic artist in Edinburgh between 1894 and 1900 and personally recalled of this period that
'what I missed most during those sensitive years is incalculable but in compensation I acquired the habit of discipline and the skill which has served me well.'
This sense of discipline is reflected in the consistently high quality and precision with which he was able to work.
Sandy Bastion is one of Flint's most supremely confident works which wonderfully displays the artist's precise observation of the nude female form
alongside his virtuoso handling of colour demonstrated in the intensely vibrant aquamarine sea.
In the introduction to Ralph Lewis's monograph on Flint, Adrian Bury R.W.S. states that 'at its best his work is perfect and above criticism.
He was the greatest master technically of the elusive water colour method of art, considering the quantity of his work,
its versatility of subject, enchanting colour, sense of beauty and graceful idealism.'