Send image Biography Enquire
£3,500

Presentation: Framed
SN: 1372
inscribed: full page in Punch on reverse
oil on card 11 3/8 x 9 7/8 in. (29 x 25 cms).

This painting is reproduced as the frontispiece of Pears 1914 book From the Thames to the Netherlands where it is entitled At Middleburg: The Kermis.

We are grateful to Richard Joynson for providing this information.
Send image Biography To be included in a
forthcoming exhibition

Presentation: Unframed
SN: 5248
Signed,
Gouache
13.4in x 24in. (8cm x 43cm)
Provenance: The Forbes Collection, Old Battersea House
Barrages were constructed during WW1 to prevent access of German U-boats through the English Channel. The most famous and successful was the Dover Barrage, constructed in 1915 and consisting of a 25km series of so-called light steel indicator nets anchored to the sea bed at various depths and used to effectively capture enemy submarines by entanglement. The indicator nets were accompanied by minefield layers, also at various depths. Finally, British destroyers were deployed to patrol the area.

Once the barrage was laid the initial signs were good with an early success secured by the British on 4 March 1915, the German U-boat U-8 claimed victim, caught in the indicator nets. Shocked, the German Navy was forbidden to use the English Channel for what eventually amounted to a year pending reconsideration of tactics.
Send image Biography Sold

Presentation: Framed
SN: 1120
Oil on panel
20 x 14 in. (50.8 x 35.6 cm)

Thumbnail panels:

Charles Pears 1873–1958

Marine painter and lithographer, born at Pontefract, Yorkshire. Pears worked initially as a black-and-white artist for magazines from the late 189os, serving as a theatrical caricaturist for Pick-Me-Up. During World War I he was an Official War Artist for the Admiralty, a position he repeated during World War Il, and he gradually established a reputation as a sound marine painter with a strong sense of design. He was founder and first president of the RSMA and his work found its way into the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, and the Imperial War Museum. However, as a versatile draughtsman he also did many posters and illustrated Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, 1922, and the works of Charles Dickens. He wrote a number of books, such as From the Thames to the Seine, 1910, and South Coast Cruising from the Thames to Penzance, 1931. Exhibited widely, including RA, ROI and Fine Art Society. Lived at St Mawes, Cornwall.