Laurence Henry Irving (1897-1988)

Artist Name Laurence Henry Irving (1897-1988)
Title Fireworks on the Thames, London
Description This superb British 1950's Post Impressionist London nocturne landscape oil painting is by noted artist Laurence Henry Irving. The scene is the Thames at night with the sky lit up with fireworks, reflected in the waters below. In the foreground a boat is illuminated as well as the skyline beyond. A really atmospheric night scene with lovely brushwork and splashes of colour and an excellent example of Irving's work. 

Signed with monogram lower right. 
Provenance London estate. 
Medium Oil on Canvas
Size 20 x 16 inches
Frame Housed in an ebonised frame with gold slip frame, 23 inches by 27 inches and in good condition.
Condition Good condition.
Biography Laurence Henry Irving OBE, RDI (11 April 1897 – 23 October 1988) was an artist, book illustrator and Hollywood set designer and art director. Irving was the son of actors H. B. Irving and Dorothea Baird, and the biographer of his grandfather, the Victorian era actor, Henry Irving. His sister was the actress and founder of the Keep Britain Tidy Campaign, Elizabeth Irving. He lived and died in Wittersham, Kent in 1988, within walking distance of the house, Smallhythe Place, where Dame Ellen Terry lived, who was his grandfather's leading lady at the Lyceum Theatre in London's West End. He briefly and unhappily attended Wellington College and later trained as a painter at the Byam Shaw School of Art and the Royal Academy School, studying under Charles Ricketts and Charles Shannon. On completion of his art training, Irving specialised in landscape and marine painting before commencing on his career as a designer for the theatre. He was a pilot in the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) during World War I, ending the War with the rank of Captain. In 1919 be became engaged to Rosalind Woolner, the granddaughter of the Pre-Raphaelite sculptor Thomas Woolner. They married in 1921. Laurence Irving was also a book illustrator, producing artwork for Richard Hakluyt's Voyages & Discoveries of the English (1926) and John Masefield’s Philip the King (1927). In 1928 Irving went to Hollywood with Douglas Fairbanks to be his Art Director on The Iron Mask (1929), the last of his full-scale silent films and, later, in collaboration with William Cameron Menzies, to design the production of the film version of The Taming of the Shrew (1929). He was the Art Director for the films 77 Park Lane (1931) and Colonel Blood (1934). In his memoirs, Irving vividly recounts working in Hollywood for such figures as Mary Pickford and Charlie Chaplin. On his return to the United Kingdom in the 1930s, he worked on films such as Moonlight Sonata (1937) and the Gabriel Pascal films of Shaw's Pygmalion (1938). In October 1939 at the start of World War II he served in the Intelligence Department at the Air Ministry.
Price £3000
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