Tom Simpson (c1846-1926)
`Low Tide`
Nicely composed watercolour depicting a fisherman and his wife strolling down to the shore, possibly heading for the small boat drawn up on the beach, intending to go out on the next tide. Tom Simpson was a well known Victorian watercolourist who exhibited widely, including the Royal Academy and Walkers gallery in London. He seems to have painted many coastal scenes, especially around his home county of Essex, and Norfolk and Suffolk. This rocky coastline looks much more like Cornwall and Devon to me however. The painting is housed in a gilt swept frame with antique white ingres mount.
SIMPSON, Thomas [Tom] (c.1846 - c.1926) Born in the city of London about 1846, son of William Simpson, a cane maker, and his wife Ruth. He married at Wandsworth, London in 1889, Mary Katherine Russell. In 1901 a 54 year old artist in watercolour living at Layer Breton Lodge, Kelvedon, Essex with his 36 year old wife Mary and their 7 year old daughter Marjorie, born Battersea, London. As Tom Simpson, a member of the Ipswich Art Club 1901-1915 and exhibited from Layer Breton in 1901 eight watercolours including 'Changing Patterns', 'An Essex Homeland', 'On the Hythe, Maldon', 'The Street, Cley', 'Pea Pickers', 'Goldhanger Old Rectory', 'The Avenue Goldhanger' and 'At Blakeney Quay' and exhibited in subsequent years. He also exhibited at Dudley Gallery, Glasgow Institute of Fine Art, Liverpool Walker Art Gallery, London Salon, New English Art Club, where he showed 'From Southwold Pier, The Royal Academy, Royal Society of British Artists, where he showed views at Walberswick, and London Walker's Gallery. He and his wife were still living at Layer Breton Lodge in 1911 and where he was a churchwarden of Layer Breton and painted a watercolour of the old church in 1909. He probably died at Bordighera, Italy in 1926, age given as 82