Foam Lace

This painting depicts Sennen Cove, off the coast of Cornwall, England, where Dougherty vacationed a number of times in the 1910s. He made many descriptive studies of the coastline at different times of the day, but his finished paintings do not record the topography of a specific site. Rather, he combined light colors and loose brushwork to capture the moistness of sea air and the diaphanous shapes formed by billowing waves and sea foam.