High Seas, Torquay

In January 1924 Richard had a winter holiday with his mother in Torquay. The sun didn’t reach their house in Ilkley during the winter months which was bad for someone suffering from TB. You can read more about the trip to Torquay in Chapter 23 of Richard's autobiography.

He used the trip to sketch and paint.  Sketches he did from his hotel room window of a ship in the harbour pounded by waves in a storm were not realised as paintings until several decades later - Storm Torquay (1989), High Seas, Torquay (1989), and Torquay Storm (c1983).

It must have been a very memorable weekend. It was supposed to be good for his mother who suffered from TB to get good clean air in her lungs and she certainly will have had a pretty good dose! My father often placed subjects very centrally in his paintings and the pier sticks straight up into the broiling sea while the arm of the harbour looks a bit like a surfacing submarine. The figures on the pier look completely unphased by the raging wind and waves! I find it wonderful that hasty sketches done in 1924 could give rise to paintings like this over 60 years later.

My son has spent his life at sea. When he saw the Torquay picture he was immediately taken by it. I think there is huge strength for an 86-yr old artist in that painting.