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William John Leech RHA ROI (1881-1968)

Currency:EUR Category:Everything Else / Other Start Price:NA Estimated At:20,000.00 - 30,000.00 EUR
William John Leech RHA ROI (1881-1968)
William John Leech RHA ROI (1881-1968) BOATS AT NICE signed lower right; original exhibition labels on reverse oil on panel 37 by 46cm., 14.5 by 18in. Exhibited: ’Centennial Exhibition of International and New Zealand Art’, National Art Gallery, Wellington, New Zealand, 8 November 1939-4 May 1940, catalogue no. 405 Leech was great friends with the New Zealand painter Sydney Lough Thompson (1877-1973), through whose auspices he was most probably prevailed upon to send works to the New Zealand Centennial Exhibition, although Denson records that Leech’s four exhibits were selected in London by Mrs E. Murray Fuller (Alan Denson, An Irish Artist: W. J. Leech RHA (1881-1968), privately published, Kendal, 1968, page 43). In any case the work most likely dates to the mid-1930s and relates to such works as The Harbour, Nice (Derby Art Gallery, 1933; Pyms Gallery, 1985), in which he employed a higher view-point, possibly as seen from a nearby convent where he was staying, and The Port, Nice (RHA, 1935; NGI, 1996), which is a sketchier work than the present example but shares with it a low view-point and close-up detail of the boats and water.