1944
Oil on canvas
74 x 100 cm
Southampton City Art Gallery, Southampton, Hampshire
Birds Eye View All Works in RA Summer Exhibitions 1937 to 1993 All Works in Public Collections Rainbows Seascapes | Coastal Scenes Weather | Storm | Wind | Rain | Snow | Mist | Fog Ships | Boats | Harbours | Ports Works | 1940 to 1949 All Works in NEAC Exhibitions 1927 to 1992 Richard Eurich (1903-1992) Visionary Artist The Art of Richard Eurich
Recto: Undated but signed lower right: R. Eurich. and inscribed lower left: "Farewell, Herzogin Cecilie"; The date 1944 is confirmed by an mention in an RE diary.
Aka: Wreck of the Herzogin Cecilie [RA, Redfern, and Russell-Cotes]; Farewell, Herzogin Cecilie [inscription recto]; ; The Wreck of the 'Herzogin Cecilie' [Bradford 1951 and 1979, Southampton, and BBC Your Paintings]; Wreck of the Herzogin Cecille [RA catalogue]; Wreck of the Herpgin Cecilie [spelling error NEAC]; The Wreck of the Hertzogin Cecilie [RE sales diary]
Verso: Southampton Art Gallery label
Other measurements: 74 x 100 cm [artist’s estate]; 76.5 x 101.7 cm [Southampton]
Devon Salcombe The South West Southampton City Art Gallery aground beached birds boats breeches breeches buoy buoy cliff collection figures grain grain ship gulls mast masted masted ship overcast public public collection rain rainbow rainy sailing sailing ship ship ships shipwreck tall tall ship umbrellas waves wind windjammer windy wreck wreckedThis painting commemorates the wreck of the clipper ship Herzogin Cecilie off the Dorset coast in 1936. No-one was hurt, but to see the beautiful ship stuck there almost undamaged but doomed was quite a tragedy. Dad said that he painted the rainy day to express the flowing of his tears. Whether the little streak of a rainbow is a dying hope is hard to say.
1st March 1944: "To London with ‘Bombardment of Salerno’, ‘Fortresses over Southampton’, to Admiralty. ‘Night Raid on Portsmouth’ to the RA. Tried to find frame for ‘Cecilie’."
30th March 1944: "Worked all day to finish the painting of the wreck of the Herzogin Cecilie (30x40). Want to send it to the RA."
"The loving precision of the Hertzogin Cecilie has been superseded by near-sentimentality and a somewhat flaccid rusticity. The painter is not, one feels, engaged. Eurich is a reporter, not a novelist. But the grand occasion is necessary to fill the sails of his imagination, the impossible problem necessary to extend his powers full-stretch. To both of these, as we know, he can rise superbly."
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