Ducks in a Meadow

Fred Stratton was born in Lincolnshire, the son of a farmer. It is not known where he studied but by the 1890s he had a studio in London. By 1900 he had moved to Amberley in Sussex where he worked with Edward Stott who had settled there in 1889 and established an artists’ community in the village. The present work is strongly influenced by Stott in both style and subject matter. Stratton exhibited widely in London and the provinces specializing in evening subjects and summer idylls. However it was as a portrait painter that he made his living and for that reason left Amberley to set up a studio in Chelsea in the late 1920s. At the outbreak of World War II Stratton was living in Peru, where he remained until his death in 1960. His painting The New Moon is in the collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum.