This painting shows a view of the Thames from Adelphi Terrace, where McEvoy’s greatest patron and friend, Claude Johnson, lived with his second wife, Evelyn Maud.
Although McEvoy is best known as a society portrait painter, this painting evidences his skill in painting landscapes. He was first drawn to landscape painting in 1903 when he and his wife Mary stayed in a cottage on the country estate of the notable art patron Sir Cyril Kendall Butler. His early landscapes show the influence of Turner and Whistler although the present work is clearly more reliant on the work of Monet, whose views of the Thames McEvoy was no doubt familiar with. Throughout his life and following his death, McEvoy’s friends and family encouraged him to paint more landscape views, although the demands of his patrons left little time to do this.
The present work was painted c.1918 and remained in the possession of the artist, who included it in...
This painting shows a view of the Thames from Adelphi Terrace, where McEvoy’s greatest patron and friend, Claude Johnson, lived with his second wife, Evelyn Maud.
Although McEvoy is best known as a society portrait painter, this painting evidences his skill in painting landscapes. He was first drawn to landscape painting in 1903 when he and his wife Mary stayed in a cottage on the country estate of the notable art patron Sir Cyril Kendall Butler. His early landscapes show the influence of Turner and Whistler although the present work is clearly more reliant on the work of Monet, whose views of the Thames McEvoy was no doubt familiar with. Throughout his life and following his death, McEvoy’s friends and family encouraged him to paint more landscape views, although the demands of his patrons left little time to do this.
The present work was painted c.1918 and remained in the possession of the artist, who included it in his first major solo show in London in spring 1923. The exhibition was staged at the Leicester Galleries and included forty-four watercolours and two oil paintings. The Thames from the Adelphi was one of the oil paintings McEvoy chose to include in the show, so he clearly considered it one of his most successful landscape works from that period.