Potter, Mary
A painter for over 60 years, Potter is known for her landscapes and still-lifes in both oil and watercolour. Potter studied at the Slade School, winning a Slade Scholarship in 1919. She achieved success as an artist in the early 1920s when she exhibited alongside the New English Art Club and the London Group. She had her first solo show in 1931 at the Bloomsbury Gallery. Her work was shown at many galleries in London during the following years, including the Whitechapel Gallery, the Serpentine Gallery and Tate. Subsequently, she won a prize at the John Moores painting competition in 1981.
Potter prepared for her works on canvas by producing preliminary watercolour sketches. Painting with oils, Potter would make use of the same palette of pale tones of colour and thin layer of paint as in her watercolours. This gives the oil paintings a great sense of the ephemeral quality of air and light. 'Sun on the Beach' was painted during a period when Potter was living in Aldeburgh, Suffolk, and takes its inspiration from the surrounding stretches of coast. As Potter's body of work progressed, it moved towards an increasing sense of abstraction that evokes a sense of feeling and seeing rather than an instantly recognisable scene.
Charlotte Booth
Sun on the Beach
1961