MARINE PAINTINGS
JAMES BRERETON
Born 1954
"The Barque Walter Morrice Becalmed"
In 1847, the barque Walter Morrice was built in South Hylton, Sunderland by Lawson Gales.
With a gross tonnage of 666 tons, she measured 126 feet in length, with a beam of 31 feet and a depth of 21 feet.
First owned and registered by Halkett & Company of London and earmarked for the Australian emigrant trade, she began her career running out to Sydney under Captain Walter Morrice.
However, following the discovery of gold in California and the ensuing frenzy, she transferred to the American Pacific Coast trade to take full advantage of the gold rush.
Thereafter, she sailed regularly to San Francisco, before returning to her original Australian run in the year 1853.
She was subsequently purchased by her Captain, Walter Morrice, who put her in the Indian trade, where she remained until she vanished from the records in the early 1870’s.
James Brereton was born in Derby in 1954. He received his formative art training at the Joseph Wright School of Art in his native Derby, but is otherwise entirely self-taught.
His early working years saw him employed in the gas industry, but his natural artistic talent and an uncompromising dedication to his painting persuaded him to leave this world behind, and in 1979 he decided to become a full-time professional painter. James specialises today in fine maritime paintings, his favourite subject being the great sailing ships of the nineteenth century, citing as his artistic influences and heroes such painters as Thomas Somerscales and Montague Dawson.
His love of ships and the sea emanate from his having lived for many years near the English coastal city of Bournemouth in Dorset, and during the 1990's he was privileged to sail in the training ship Sir Winston Churchill , an experience which he says was unforgettable, and one which provided him with much artistic inspiration and encouragement.
James Brereton has been a regular exhibitor at the Royal Society of Marine Artists in past years, and his work is both recorded and illustrated in Denys Brook Hart's "Dictionary of 20th Century Marine Painters", as well as in E.H.H. "Teddy" Archibald's "Dictionary of Sea Painters of Europe and America". His paintings are universally appreciated by art collectors for their realism and the quality of his draughtsmanship, and they are to be found in private collections throughout the United Kingdom, as well as in Eire, Belgium, Italy, Oman, Japan and the United States.
Signed
Oil on canvas
24 x 36 inches
61 x 92 cms.
Framed Size
32 x 44 inches; 81 x 112 cms.