Joseph Southall: 1861-1944

Joseph Southall is perhaps the most important Arts and Crafts painter. Born in Nottingham in 1861, Southall spent most of his life in Birmingham, where he originally trained to be an architect, before falling under the spell of John Ruskin and switching his interests to painting. He played a key role in the revival of the mediaeval techniques of tempera and fresco painting. This book shows a wide variety of work produced by Southall during his lifetime. As well as superb watercolours of England, there are also scenes from the Italian lakes and Tuscany; several images of sailing barques in the harbour at Fowey in Cornwall and a number of works done at Southwold in Suffolk, where the Southalls spent every July. These range from tempera paintings of local fishermen and their boats to delightful pencil and chalk studies of elegant ladies and children playing on the beach.