Provenance: - Private Collection

Literature: - Helen Entwisle, Rock Pools and Sunshine, A Biography of Dorothea Sharp, the finished oil ‘In the Garden’ illustrated page 30 (finished oil)
- Mac Connal-Mason, Gallery Catalogue, pages 78-9

Helen Entwisle, author of Rock Pools and Sunshine, explained how this vibrant work is “extremely typical of the ‘plein air’ studies Dorothea Sharp made sitting outside, capturing the light, movement and colours” . Having studied in Paris, Sharp was greatly influenced by the French Impressionists; particularly their clarity of light and spontaneity of brushwork.

The artist was renowned for her naturalistic studies of children, particularly her nieces and nephews, and in this work, two young children play in the sunshine amongst the poppies and lupins. The heavy impasto, the bold use of colour in light and shade and the vigorous brushwork This is a painting of innocence, two young children absorbed with nature. As the author also states, Dorothea Sharp rarely dated her work and therefore it is difficult to say exactly where ‘In the Garden’ was painted. It seems very much, however, an ‘English Country Garden’ and for much of her life she lived in West London, moving to St. Ives in Cornwall towards the end of her life. She travelled widely in the 1920s and 1930s, visiting Cornwall, the South of France, Spain, Portugal and Italy, views of which appeared in her Royal Academy exhibits.

Sharp studied at an art school in Richmond run by Charles Edward Johnson studying and at Regent Street Polytechnic, continuing her studies in Paris. Sharp exhibited widely at the Royal Academy 1901-1948 at the RBA to which she was elected in 1907, the ROI elected member 1922 and at the SWA of which she was vice president.