William Teulon Blandford Fletcher (1858-1936)THE GOSSIPSoil on canvassigned lower left; with

William Teulon Blandford Fletcher (1858-1936)

THE GOSSIPS

oil on canvas

signed lower left; with inscribed artist`s label on reverse detailing title, artist`s address [Old Park Road, Enfield] and number [2]

LandscaPortraite

19 by 29in., 47.5 by 72.5cm.

Martin Winter Esq., London, until 1911

`An Exhibition of 18th-21st Century Irish Paintings`, Gorry Gallery, Dublin, 20 May to 2 June 2012, catalogue no.28 (illustrated, p.19)

Although not an Irish artist, William Teulon Blandford Fletcher was one of a generation of distinctive British and Irish naturalist painters active in the 1880s amongst whom can be counted Walter Osborne, Stanhope Forbes, Sir John Lavery, Joseph Malachy Kavanagh, Frank O`Meara and Nathaniel Hill.Born to a solidly middle-class family in Hampstead, London, Fletcher battled parental opposition to train as an artist, enrolling in the South Kensington School of Art at the age of 16. During his four years there, he made a trip to Brittany where many artists such as Stanhope Forbes had rejected the British studio painting tradition in favour of European plein air realism. Inspired by these Breton experiences Fletcher enrolled at Varlat`s Academie Royal des Beaux Arts in Antwerp where he met and became a close friend of fellow student Walter Osborne whom he subsequently accompanied on a number of trips to Brittany. They are known to have painted together in Pont-Aven, Quimperlé and possibly Dinan. In later years they met again to paint together in the Thames Valley villages of Oxfordshire. The similarity of their training and proximity on these trips is reflected in their artistic output both in terms of composition and execution.In The Gossips, the two women, traditionally dressed in white Breton bonnets and wooden clogs, as well as chatting are both engaged in the day`s laundry. The distant figure has laid out white linen sheets to dry in the gated orchard. There is a similar image of a girl amongst laid white sheets in an orchard entitled Laundry Day by Louis Welden Hawkins (Private Collection, Ireland), another expatriate who made the artists pilgrimage to the wild north west of France. The figure closer to us leaning against the richly textured and weathered wall also has white linen in the basket at her feet, which judging from it`s unfolded state, is probably destined for the river for cleaning. The buildings to the right of this composition are distinctly Breton and it is interesting to note that the overshot watermill on the far right has three wheels powering what must have been a substantial enterprise.Fletcher went on to live and paint in the artist`s colony of Newlyn in Cornwall and ultimately in Abingdon in Oxfordshire where he died in 1936.We are grateful to the Gorry Gallery for its kind permission to reproduce this note.