Exploring Our Sense of Place Through Art

Be transported to lands both near and far in this evocative exhibition which explores the theme of place. It features important works from RAMM’s fine art collection from the 18th century to the late 20th century. Artists through the centuries have sought to capture the characteristics that make a place special and unique.

Charles Lock Eastlake studied under the artist Benjamin Haydon (1786-1846), who specialised in grand historical paintings, portraiture, and contemporary subjects. He was Haydon’s first pupil. Eastlake cemented his reputation as an artist with his work ‘Napoleon on board the Bellerophon’, having sketched Napoleon in Plymouth on route to his exile on the island of St Helena.

Thomas Patch, originally from Exeter, travelled in Italy in 1747 and settled in Florence in 1755. His approach to caricature was good-humoured rather than satirical. At that time, Florence was an important city for the English gentry on the Grand Tour of Europe and in this work Patch has observed the attitudes of cultural tourists aspiring to be connoisseurs.

The composition is taken from Bellosguardo, a renowned beauty spot to the south west of Florence. From here, most of the city’s prominent buildings are visible, including the Campanile and Duomo, Palazzo Vecchio, and Palazzo Pitti. Patch painted several versions of this popular view, one of which is now in the Royal Collection.

Hammond was a prodigious painter who is best known for his society portraiture, landscapes and industrial paintings. He used a variety of mediums in his work, but is best known as a watercolourist.

Having left school at 11, he first worked in a grocery store before entering into an apprenticeship with a watchmaker. He pursued his interest in art studying at Nottingham School of Art in the evenings. He left his apprenticeship to concentrate on art full time.

John White Abbott was a surgeon and apothecary, who came from a wealthy family that owned many estates in Devon. He studied under the artist Francis Towne in Exeter and also acted as Towne’s patron.

His work was based on local subjects, but he also made sketching tours to the Lake District and Scotland in 1791.

Amedee Rosier was a topographical artist of great versatility. Throughout his career he travelled extensively through North Africa, Egypt, France, Venice, and Constantinople searching for visually interesting scenes. He is best known for his Venetian works of which ‘Sunset Scene-Canal San Marco’ is an important example.

Albert Moulton Foweraker was fascinated by the effect of light upon the landscape. He is known especially for his moonlit paintings and use of the colour blue.

The subject of this painting is the Alhambra, the palace, and fortress complex in Granada. It was first built in AD 889 on the remains of Roman fortifications and developed further in the 13th century. In the distance is the Sierra Nevada mountain range.

Foweraker was educated at Exeter Cathedral School, then Christ’s College Cambridge. He was awarded a degree in applied science in 1893 and later qualified as a milling engineer. Occasionally, Foweraker would work as a science demonstrator at Exeter Technical College.

Nathaniel Hughes John Baird was born in Yetholm, Roxburghshire in south east Scotland. He was the son of John Baird who is known for the foundation of the first ragged schools, which were dedicated to the free education of poor children in 19th century Britain.

Beryl Newman was a pupil of the celebrated artist Hubert van Herkomer (1849-1914) and Roland Wheelwright, the Australian born painter and illustrator.

She loved to travel and visited many different countries with her father, following the death of her mother. Many drawings were inspired by these travels. Later she travelled extensively in her own right.

Frederick Goodall was the son of the celebrated steel line engraver Edward Goodall. He was educated at Wellington Road Academy, London. Charles Dickens had been a former student there.

William Collingwood Smith is best known for his watercolour painting, though he also painted in oils. He specialised in landscapes, river scenes and maritime subjects.

John White Abbott’s tour to the Lake District and Scotland in 1791 is his only known extensive tour outside of Devon. Abbott travelled to the Lake District in the second week of July 1791.

The Old Man, Coniston Lake, is a fell, a high baron landscape feature. It rises 2,634 feet, or 803 metres high, west of the village of Coniston and Lake Coniston Water.

John Shapland was born in Dawlish and lived in Exeter for most of his life. He is known for both landscapes and seascapes in watercolour and oil.

This watercolour with its loose composition and continental style of colouring is typical of his work. It depicts the Esterel Massif, a Mediterranean coastal mountain range in Provence, south east France.

Cornishman Thomas Luny specialised in seascapes. At the age of 11 he moved to London. There he became apprentice to the marine painter Francis Holman who specialised in views of London shipyards, paintings of river traffic, and naval scenes.

John MacWhirter was a Scottish landscape painter. He attended school in Colinton, Edinburgh. He was unsuccessfully apprenticed to Oliver Boyd, an Edinburgh bookseller following the death of his father. This was not a success and he stayed just a few months.

A founder member of the Camden Town Group, Lucien Pissarro did not visit Applehayes Farm. Instead he found inspiration in Blackpool Vale, four miles south west of Dartmouth. He first visited the area in 1913 to recover from illness, but returned many times in later years. He was sometimes accompanied by his daughter Orovida Camille Pissarro and Camden Town Group member James Bolivar Manson.

F.J. Widgery was commissioned to produce 22 watercolours of Dartmoor scenes to illustrate a revised edition of Samuel Rowe’s A Perambulation of Dartmoor, published in 1896. He represented the most prominent features of the landscape such as the tors, standing stones, rivers and bridges. In 1953 RAMM took an opportunity to purchase the complete original set. Each scene is portrayed in the fresh, bright colours of late spring and early summer. Unfortunately the plates were not reproduced in colour and these qualities are entirely absent in the publication

Foweraker was educated at Exeter Cathedral School, then Christ’s College Cambridge. He was awarded a degree in applied science in 1893 and later qualified as a milling engineer. Occasionally, Foweraker would work as a science demonstrator at Exeter Technical College. In 1898 he took up art professionally. A prolific artist, he painted many landscapes of Devon, Cornwall and Dorset. He also made frequent trips to Spain and visited north Africa and the south of France. He produced many impressionistic paintings inspired by these travels.