Henry Scott Tuke, RA, RWS

(British, 1858-1929)

A West Indian boy unframed

Footnotes

PROVENANCE:
Olive Savage

This is a rare watercolour of Tuke's adventurous trip to the West Indies from November 1923 to March 1924. Even though it is dated 1926, Tuke was fond of post dating works when he wanted to exhibit them.

Tuke went to the West Indies with the explorer Frederick Albert Mitchell Hedges (1882 – 1959) and Lady Richmond Brown, an authoress and adventurer, accompanied by a Miss MacBeth the cousin of Dr. Gann a Mayan archaeologist who later joined them in Belize. They sailed from Avonmouth on 23 November on the S.S.Coranado. The first stop on the journey was Jamaica, which they reached in 15 days, and Tuke made several studies in oil and watercolour of the Black River where this painting was produced. There were many fishing expeditions with Hedges and Lady Brown, which required assistance from local people, including young lads who were employed to row the boats and make camp. Tuke used them as models for his paintings as he did back home in Falmouth.

Samuel (also called Samwell by Tuke) and Ralph were two of his most frequent models, along with Robbie. They would go up the river in rowing or sailing boats and Tuke would find a beach or a mangrove swamp to paint them against. On one such expedition with Robbie, they realised they had left Tuke's bag behind on the quay and when they returned it has been stolen with Tuke's watercolours in it. This was on 6th January 1924. It meant that although he was able to order more paints locally his palette of colours changed after this date and in particular he had to use a more acid viridian green than usual which is visible in the leaves of the tree in this painting. The model in this work is probably Samuel. This is because Tuke wrote in his diary for the trip about when he did most of his paintings and the models he used. He notes in his diary that he painted Samuel under a tree on two occasions once on 12th January, "In the boat on one of the nearer beaches and posed Samwell lying under the shadow of a tree by a shore, very difficult to start but eventually the figure came rather well", and on 19th January 1924 he noted, "Down to our old beach with Samuel under the trees, almost unpaintable with flickering shadows and not posing well". Tuke described Samuel as, "an interesting type. Looks like a fierce savage and is as gentle as a dove". Samuel features in an oil painting by Tuke done at a similar time, sitting on a blue dug-out boat (Catherine Wallace, Catching the Light: The Art and Life of Henry Scott Tuke, Edinburgh 2008, illustrated page 138).

We are grateful to Catherine Wallace for her assistance in cataloguing this lot.