Dieppe – The Artists – Sickert, Walter Richard – Part 3 – Travel Information and Tips for France

This page forms part of a series of pages dedicated to the many artists who painted in Dieppe. A full list of all the artists with a link to their works can be found at the bottom of this page.

Walter Richard Sickert (1860 – 1942) was a British painter and printmaker who was a member of the Camden Town Group of Post-Impressionist artists in early 20th-century London. He was an important influence on distinctively British styles of avant-garde art in the mid- and late 20th century.

Sickert was a cosmopolitan and eccentric who often favoured ordinary people and urban scenes as his subjects. His work includes portraits of well-known personalities and images derived from press photographs. He is considered a prominent figure in the transition from Impressionism to Modernism.

Sickert was born in Munich, Germany, on 31 May 1860, the eldest son of Oswald Sickert, a Danish-German artist, and his wife, Eleanor Louisa Henry, who was an illegitimate daughter of the British astronomer Richard Sheepshanks. In 1868, following the German annexation of Schleswig-Holstein, the family settled in Britain, where Oswald’s work had been recommended by Freiherrin Rebecca von Kreusser to Ralph Nicholson Wornum, who was Keeper of the National Gallery at the time.

The family obtained British nationality. The young Sickert was sent to University College School from 1870 to 1871, before transferring to King’s College School, where he studied until the age of 18. Though he was the son and grandson of painters, he first sought a career as an actor; he appeared in small parts in Sir Henry Irving’s company, before taking up the study of art in 1881. After less than a year’s attendance at the Slade School, Sickert left to become a pupil of and etching assistant to James Abbott McNeill Whistler. Sickert’s earliest paintings were small tonal studies painted alla prima from nature after Whistler’s example.

In 1883 he travelled to Paris and met Edgar Degas, whose use of pictorial space and emphasis on drawing would have a powerful effect on Sickert’s work. He developed a personal version of Impressionism, favouring sombre colouration.

In the late 1880s he spent much of his time in France, especially in Dieppe, which he first visited in mid-1885, and where his mistress, and possibly his illegitimate son, lived.

Just before the First World War he championed the avant-garde artists Lucien Pissarro, Jacob Epstein, Augustus John and Wyndham Lewis. At the same time Sickert founded, with other artists, the Camden Town Group of British painters, named from the district of London in which he lived.

After the death of his second wife in 1920, Sickert relocated to Dieppe, where he painted scenes of casinos and cafe life until his return to London in 1922. In 1924, he was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy (ARA).

Sickert painted an informal portrait of Winston Churchill in about 1927. Churchill’s wife Clementine introduced him to Sickert, who had been a friend of her family. The two men got along so well that Churchill, whose hobby was painting, wrote to his wife that “He is really giving me a new lease of life as a painter.”

Sickert took a keen interest in the crimes of Jack the Ripper and believed he had lodged in a room used by the notorious serial killer. He had been told this by his landlady, who suspected a previous lodger. Sickert did a painting of the room and titled it Jack the Ripper’s Bedroom. It shows a dark, melancholy room with most details obscured.

Although for over 80 years there was no mention of Sickert being a suspect in the Ripper crimes, in the 1970s authors began to explore the idea that Sickert was Jack the Ripper or his accomplice.

Sickert died in Bath, Somerset in 1942, at the age of 81.

Click here to read more about this British artist on Wikipedia.

NOTE: This is PART 3 of a lot of Sickert’s works for Dieppe’s suburbs.

PART 1 deals with his works from 1884 to 1903. Click here to read it.
PART 2 deals with his works from 1904 to 1920. Click here to read it.
PART 3 deals (this article) with the Dieppe suburbs (Envermeu, Martin Eglise, Neuville, Sainte Marguerite Sur Mer and Torqueville). A link to these articles will appear here when published.

NOTE: Click on any image below for a bigger version (no new window will open).

Envermeu

Envermeu (population: 2,100) is a village inland to the East of Dieppe.

1919- Walter Richard Sickert - Envermeu — 1919- Walter Richard Sickert – Envermeu

1920- Walter Richard Sickert - Party near Envermeu, Dieppe — 1920- Walter Richard Sickert – Party near Envermeu, Dieppe

1924- Walter Richard Sickert - Envermeu — 1924- Walter Richard Sickert – Envermeu

Martin-Eglise

Martin-Eglise (population: 1,550) is a small town to the immediate East of Dieppe. It is a suburb of Dieppe.

Neuville-sur-Dieppe

Neuville-sur-Dieppe (former population: 9,800) now forms part of Dieppe, but it was the town located to the North of Dieppe. The town merged with Dieppe in 1980.

1899- Walter Richard Sickert - Le Mont de Neuville — 1899- Walter Richard Sickert – Le Mont de Neuville

1903- Walter Richard Sickert - Bust of Nero, the Artist's Garden, Neuville — 1903- Walter Richard Sickert – Bust of Nero, the Artist’s Garden, Neuville

1913- Walter Richard Sickert - The Obelisk at Arques, Eaulne Valley, Dieppe — 1913- Walter Richard Sickert – The Obelisk at Arques, Eaulne Valley, Dieppe

TODAY: The Eaulne Valley forms part of the former town of Neuville.

???? - Walter Richard Sickert - Le Mont de Neuville — ???? – Walter Richard Sickert – Le Mont de Neuville

???? - Walter Richard Sickert - Wooded Landscape at Tibermont, Neuville Les Dieppes — ???? – Walter Richard Sickert – Wooded Landscape at Tibermont, Neuville Les Dieppes

Sainte-Marguerite-sur-Mer

Sainte-Marguerite-sur-Mer (population: 480) is a village that lies to the West of Dieppe alongside the coast.

Torqueville

Torqueville is a small hamlet close to the village of Envermeu, that itself lies to the East of Dieppe.

1913 - Walter Richard Sickert - The old dovecote, Torqueville — 1913 – Walter Richard Sickert – The old dovecote, Torqueville

Walter Sickert painted mostly in Dieppe and its surroundings when he was in France. He did paint in Paris and one other place in France (a link “⇠” to his works will appear below when published):

Auberville
Dieppe (and surroundings) ⇠
- Envermeu ⇠
- Martin Eglise ⇠
- Neuville ⇠
- Sainte Marguerite Sur Mer ⇠
- Torqueville ⇠

Dieppe in Normandy was a popular place for artists to come and apply their art. Here is a list, non exhaustive, of the artists that painted in Dieppe.

A link (“⇠”) to the artist’s works will appear when published (a “*” indicates that the artist did not work directly in Dieppe, instead worked in nearby villages):

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Dieppe – The Artists – Sickert, Walter Richard - Part 2
99
Walter Richard Sickert RA RBA (1860 – 1942) was a British painter and printmaker who was a member of the Camden Town Group of Post-Impressionist artists in early 20th-century London. He was an important influence on distinctively British styles of avant-garde art in the mid- and late 20th century. In…
Dieppe – The Artists – Sickert, Walter Richard - Part 1
98
Walter Richard Sickert RA RBA (1860 – 1942) was a British painter and printmaker who was a member of the Camden Town Group of Post-Impressionist artists in early 20th-century London. He was an important influence on distinctively British styles of avant-garde art in the mid- and late 20th century. In…
Artist: Sickert, Walter Richard
86
Walter Richard Sickert RA RBA (1860 – 1942) was a British painter and printmaker who was a member of the Camden Town Group of Post-Impressionist artists in early 20th-century London. He was an important influence on distinctively British styles of avant-garde art in the mid- and late 20th century. In…
Dieppe – The Artists – Prendergast, Maurice
78
Maurice Brazil Prendergast (1858 – 1924) was an American Post-Impressionist artist who worked in oil, watercolor, and monotype. Here is the one painting of his we found which he made in Dieppe, Normandy.
Dieppe – The Artists – Madelain, Gustave
78
Gustave Madelain (1867 - 1944) was French painter with his own interpretation of French post Impressionism. Madelain showed a number of canvases at Le Havre and at Rouen; though it was naturally in Paris that he had his greatest success. We found only one of his paintings he made in…