View of Hampstead

Location

Country: UK
City: London
Place: Cabinet Office, 70 Whitehall

Charles Ginner’s painting is an elevated view of a cobbled street lined with stone and brick buildings, leading towards Hampstead Heath, with the distant silhouette of Highgate Church on the horizon. Using bold colours, forms and textures, Ginner creates a heady sense of depth as we look across the rooftops of this part of north London.

 

The view depicts the northeast end of Flask Walk in Hampstead, which leads off Hampstead High Street. This area frequently featured in Ginner’s paintings of the 1920s and 1930s, during which he is known to have lived in a flat above a shop at 61 High Street. The artist’s numerous views of Flask Walk were painted from the first and fourth floor windows of his building. Researcher Michael Lee has suggested that this work shows the view from the top floor of the artist’s flat, a view which today is obscured by lime trees. As the Heath is a distance from the building, Ginner may have either had very acute vision or perhaps used binoculars to capture the view. He may also have sketched the distant buildings from another vantage point and integrated these into the view that he would have had at ground level.

Charles Ginner was born in Cannes, France, to Anglo-Scottish parents. He worked in an architect's office in Paris from 1899 to 1904 before studying painting at various institutions until 1908. In 1909 he visited Buenos Aires and held his first exhibition there, and late in that year he settled permanently in London. Ginner was a key member of the Camden Town Group founded by Walter Sickert and painted urban scenes of modern life in the metropolis. Ginner also worked as an Official War Artist during the Second World War.

Places

England, London, Hampstead

Subjects

genre, townscape/cityscape, Camden Town Group, tree, man, woman, lamp post, street, pavement, terraced house, house, spire, chimney

Materials & Techniques

canvas, oil, oil painting

Artist

Charles Ginner (1878 - 1952)

Title

View of Hampstead

Date

1920s

Medium

Oil on canvas

Dimensions

height: 50.50 cm, width: 60.50 cm

Acquisition

Purchased from the Piccadilly Gallery, June 1959

Inscription

br: C. GINNER

Provenance

Purchased from Piccadilly Gallery 1959

GAC number

4944