Beach with Bathers

This is a wonderful coming together of so many elements from Richard’s experience. The central ‘arch’ formed by the figures in a rather  awkward dance are part of the line of pillar-like people at intervals along the shore. In the sea are a multitude of writhing figures in all sorts of poses and activities which give animation to the formal design completed by the calmness of the tankers on the horizon.

"Richard Eurich has been interested in the sea and the sea shore as subjects for painting since as a youth he visited the Chesil Bank while on holidays with cousins at Weymouth. There he learnt to make notes and drawings which could be used years later as a basis for making oil paintings. Eurich has lived at Dibden Purlieu in the New Forest since 1934 and has on occasions visited Lepe, on the Solent, where oil tankers pass on their way to or from the nearby oil refinery at Fawley. Eurich painted ‘Beach with Bathers’ at his …

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"Richard Eurich has been interested in the sea and the sea shore as subjects for painting since as a youth he visited the Chesil Bank while on holidays with cousins at Weymouth. There he learnt to make notes and drawings which could be used years later as a basis for making oil paintings. Eurich has lived at Dibden Purlieu in the New Forest since 1934 and has on occasions visited Lepe, on the Solent, where oil tankers pass on their way to or from the nearby oil refinery at Fawley. Eurich painted ‘Beach with Bathers’ at his studio in Dibden Purlieu, from imagination, though he ‘probably’ consulted drawings, made perhaps years before, of ships and the shore. He has from time to time used a panoramic format for pictures, in which the width of the work may be more than twice the height of the work. He first used this format in two paintings of 1937, "Mousehole Harbour, Cornwall", 24 × 65in., now in the Aberdeen Art Gallery, and "Porthleven, Cornwall", [aka " Low Tide, Porthleven"], 19 × 69 1/2in., in the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (NGV)."

Addenda to the above extract:

• There was actually a third panorama done in 1937, "Constantine, Cornwall" and they were all exhibited together in his solo show at the Redfern Gallery in 1938.
• We have discovered that Richard used the panorama format as early as 1918, but the 1938 show does seems to be a turning point, because he began from that exhibition to choose the format regularly, using it for over 150 works by the end of his career.