Summer

Thomas Martine Ronaldson 1881 - 1942

Summary

Half-length portrait of a young woman in a swimming costume and swimming cap. The subject stands to the left with her head turned over her shoulder looking to the right. She wears a turquoise costume, white cap and a multi-coloured cape draped over her shoulders. The background is plain and indistinct. The sitter was the artist's daughter, Lesley, and it was painted in 1928 in the artist's studio from recollections of the 'out-of-door effect' on the French coast. In a letter to the gallery dated 24th June 1929 Ronaldson writes "the head and figure are quite solidly and directly painted, but the final blue of the background is more in the nature of a glaze". Ronaldson was a Scottish-born portrait painter in oil and watercolour. He grew up in Edinburgh where he later studied at the Edinburgh School of Art. He continued his artistic studies in London and in Paris under J.P. Laurens at the Academie Julian, winning a silver medal at the Paris Salon in 1926.