Frank Lewis Emanuel, British 1865-1948. Oil on board signed Frank L Emanuel.
View of Mers-les-Bains featuring the Church of St. James.
Dimensions: 20 cm by 24.5 cm (7.8 inches by 9.65 inches)
Provenance- Private collection of paintings from the Amshewitz Estate, February 2023, Pretoria. See plate 45 in The Paintings of J. H. Amshewitz R.B.A by Sarah Briana Amshewitz where reference is made to letters to Frank Emanuel.
Mers-les-Bains is a small seaside town and holiday resort at the mouth of the river Bresle, about 2 kilometres north-east of the well-known resort of Le Treport on the French Normandy coast.
Frank Lewis Emanuel was born in Bayswater, London, on 15 September 1865. He was an artist and illustrator who painted interiors and landscapes. He studied under Alphonse Legros, at the Slade School of Fine Art where he won the first medal for life drawing, and under William-Adolphe Bouguereau and Tony Robert-Fleury at the Académie Julian in Paris. He was a founder and Honorary Secretary of the Society of Graphic Art (SGA), an examiner for the Royal Drawing Society, and a member of the Art Workers’ Guild and the Society of Marine Artists. He taught etching at the Central School of Arts & Crafts between 1918 and 1930 and was the author of ‘The Illustrators of Montmartre (1903) and ‘Etching and Etchings (1930). He travelled extensively in Europe, South Africa and Ceylon.
He exhibited at the Royal Academy, the Paris Salon and internationally, including Australia, Germany, Holland, Japan and the USA. Many of his paintings were reproduced as picture postcards by Raphael Tuck and others in the early 20th century and are notable in similarity to this work.
He died on 7 May 1948 at St Charles’ Hospital, London.