Thursday, November 11, 2010

When was this - update

Ok, so there are two ways to answers to the question of "When was this?" for this picture

1. There are red double decker buses crossing Putney Bridge and no buildings in the background - as Tillerman worked out, that means it must be in the 50s. The sails are a red herring as they are likely to be from the Ranelagh Sailing Club that has been there since 1889 and its not possible to work out what class of boat they are

2. If you look on the back it says "Putney Bridge 1950s"

It also says its by Dick Lee who was part of the Camberwell School of Art. He loved the sea and during the war served in the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve.

You can see more of his pictures here.

3 comments:

O Docker said...

This would have been a lot easier if you'd posted the back of the painting instead.

Tillerman said...

Amazing. It's so hard to see in that photo what exactly is on the bridge and in the background that I'm astonished that my wild guesses turned out to be correct.

Did you say, JP, that this painting was the reason you went to Shrewsbury? To see the painting? To buy it?

You are always writing about the river at Putney. Do you actually live near the river there?

O Docker said...

I think when you copied the painting, the flash was reflected back in the lens and darkened the overall exposure.

I ran it through Photoshop, restoring a normal tonal range and the colors brightened up quite a bit. The blobs on the bridge became the familiar London bus red. Is that the way the original painting looks?