Studio RT Ltd

Description

We are delighted to offer for sale this superb oil on mahogany board by the artist SARAH LOUISE KILPACK, who has signed the painting S.L. Kilpack in red in the lower left hand corner, and inscribed it verso in ink 'At low tide Near St. Ouen, Jersey'. The painting depicts a scene at low tide, with a woman shrimping and two figures on the rocks, possibly gathering seaweed. Sunlight is glinting down from between the clouds and reflecting in the water and illuminating the edges of the tall cliffs in the background.

Sarah Louise Kilpack was born in Covent Garden, London on 15th December 1839. She was the youngest child of Georgina and Thomas Kilpack, a tobacconist, whose family lived above the shop. She draw and played the piano from an early age, and showed great aptitude for both. Her musical ability was such that the fees she earned from playing concerts, enable her to travel to the country to sketch.

She moved to the Channel Islands in the middle 1860s, where she drew her inspiration from the forces of nature surrounding those islands. Her paintings show an understanding of the tides, winds and waves around the bays and rocky cliffs of the islands and the hard life of the fishermen and islanders.

Two of her paintings were exhibited at the 11th Annual Exhibition of The Society of Women Artists in London and two more were selected for exhibition at the British Institution. In total, she exhibited 58 paintings at the Society of Women Artists' exhibitions.

By the early 1880s she was earning about £500 a year from her prodigious output of paintings, considering she charged an average of 6 guineas each for them. She was a prolific artist.

Sarah never married but continued painting and exhibiting up to her death from cancer on 25th October 1909.

She is listed in The Dictionary of British Artists and Graves Dictionary. Her auction results are available at artprice.com (353 listings), findartinfo.com (167), artnet.com (127) and arcadja.com (121). Her paintings achieve prices into the thousands and Jersey has even issued a set of stamps featuring her paintings, a set of which we are giving with this painting.

The painting has been newly framed in a 2 3/4" gilt frame, which suits it very well. It is ready to hang.

Medium Oils on chamferred mahogany panel.