19th Century Watercolourists in Hastings

Sorry for not publishing anything over the weekend, but I've just got back from a visit t' frozen north this evening, visiting friends, football etc, so here's another of my Hastings Independent articles, slightly amended, for your perusal... 

For nearly 10 years in the mid-19th century, West Hill House became a meeting place for many well-known artists, including J. M. W. Turner, William Henry Hunt, Samuel Prout, David Cox, William Collingwood and Peter de Wint, whilst the entrepreneur, collector and philanthropist, John Hornby Maw, himself an amateur artist, lived there. 

West Hill House

All of these artists had visited, sketched, and painted watercolours in Hastings earlier in the century, with the local fishing industry at the centre of their subject matter, so why did they return so often to the town? Well, the arrival of Maw was certainly a major factor, also, all these artists, including Maw, were members of the 'Society of Painters in Water Colours'.  

The Society had been formed early in the 19th century, when the Royal Academy was refusing to accept watercolour as a suitable medium for serious artistic expression. Although the Society folded due to financial problems in 1812, it was resurrected in 1831, whilst Maw was still living in London. 

Maw moved to Hastings in the late 1830s, and received tutoring here from de Wint, whilst the other artists already mentioned either came to stay with Maw or visited whilst they were staying elsewhere in Hastings, like Hunt, who regularly stayed at Rock a Nore. In the case of Prout, he had moved to George Street in Hastings because of ill health, arriving in 1836 following a pulmonary attack, until he finally left in 1845. 

David Cox: 

Fish Market on the Beach at Hastings

Maw's daughter, Anne, wrote that "Billy Hunt... stayed overlooking the fish market in humble lodgings" with his family from 1842 to 1849, that is, at the foot of the East Hill cliffs. Hunt wanted to be close to the subjects of his art, and most of his sketches and paintings are of the local people and their houses, the boats and net huts. Indeed, all the artists so far mentioned, and many others, painted similar subjects and, today, a number of early 19th century watercolours can be seen in the 'old town' museum in the High Street, eg Samuel Prout's 'East Cliffs' (1815). 

William Collingwood: 

An Antique Interior at West Hill House

Of 3 similar paintings of a woman indoors in West Hill House in the 1840s, that I am aware of, 2 are now with the Hastings Museum collection in Bohemia Road. Those in the collection are Maw's own 'Interior of West Hill House' (c.1842) and Hunt's 'West Hill House' (c.1846). The museum tried to purchase the third painting, by Collingwood, 'An Antique Interior at West Hill House' (1842), but lost out to the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool, where it can now be seen.  

J. M. W. Turner: Hastings: 

Fish Market on the Sands, Early Morning 

In 1849 the Maw family left Hastings for Devon, but these artists' legacy lives on, indeed, a large collection of 19th Century marine paintings of the Hastings area are part of the museum collection. Although not on show at the moment, having returned from abroad late last year, in 2006 the museum purchased Turner's 'Hastings: Fish Market on the Sands, Early Morning'. I am looking forward to seeing this painting again when it is next exhibited, probably in the spring!