c. 1909
oil on canvas
h127 x w180cm

Messums Art Market says: The present seascape, executed on an impressive scale and bathed in pinky hues at the close of day, is a major example by the artist.

Literature
Studio Magazine, January 1910, Vol. XLIII, no. 202, p.277 (illus.) Royal Academy Illustrated, 1919, p.82

Description
A larger than life character, described by The Studio magazine as “a big man with a big heart, who paints big pictures with big brushes in a big studio,” Julius Olsson was pivotal to the second wave of artistic immigration to St. Ives in the 1890s. His work was first accepted at the Royal Academy in 1890, and he joined the New English Art Club in 1891. With little or no formal artistic training himself, he set up studio on Porthmeor beach, St. Ives. This became, in 1895, the premises for the School of Landscape and Marine Painting. Teaching in conjunction with Louis Grier and Algernon Talmage, Olsson soon built a reputation that attracted aspiring marine painters from far-afield, including Mary McCrossan and the Australian-American artist Richard Hayley Lever.

In 1914 Olsson was elected ARA and full membership followed in 1920. During the First World War he served as lieutenant in the RNVR, giving him the opportunity of painting naval ships in action. He married Edith Ellison in 1925, the daughter of an Irish horse breeder, and thereafter he made frequent painting trips to Ireland and Sweden, always concentrating on the effects of light on water, which he increasingly came to see as a type of natural canvas. He died at Dalkey, near Dublin, in 1942 having been bombed out of his London studio.

Messums Estimate: £20,000 – £30,000