Open Sea

Stott was born in Oldham, the son of a cotton mill owner. He studied at Manchester School of Art before going to Paris and studying under Gerome. He established a successful career in France, exhibiting regularly at the Paris Salon and becoming an influential member of the largely British and American artists’ colony at Grez-sur-Loing. In 1889 he held a one-man show at the Durand-Ruel Gallery, famous for its showing of the French Impressionists. On his return to England he became a follower and close friend of Whistler. He worked in oils, watercolours and pastels, and is best known for his landscapes painted in an atmospheric and Impressionistic style. From 1882, Stott signed himself “of Oldham” to distinguish himself from the then equally famous Edward Stott ARA. The current work is one of a series of pastels of open sea painted in the 1890s. And was given to his friend and fellow artist, John Macallan Swan. In his latter years Stott took many short sea voyages around the coast of Britain. He died unexpectedly, aged 43, on one such trip travelling between Southampton and Belfast.