Bell painted this picture on a trip to Dover in 1938 to fulfill a commission for the International Business Machines Corporation. The finely-observed detail of the hotel on the left, the chalk white cliffs and castle ramparts is typical of the realism of the Euston Road School, with which Bell was closely involved.
Although the artist painted on the spot, he may have used the photograph shown to the left to work on the details in his studio.
Canvas, 25 x 30 (63.5 x 76.2).
Chantrey Purchase from Mrs. Quentin Bell 1967.
Coll. Bequeathed to Mrs Quentin Bell (Miss Anne Olivier Popham) by the artist 1943.
Exh. Paintings by Graham Bell, Thomas Carr, William Coldstream, Victor Pasmore, Claude Rogers, Geoffrey Tibbie, Rosenberg & Helft, September-October 1938 (1); A.I.A. Travelling Exhibition No. 2, 1941 ? (A.I.A. records lost); Contemporary British Paintings and Drawings, British Council tour of South Africa and Rhodesia, December 1947–October 1948 (3); British Painting 1925–50; Second Anthology, Arts Council tour, 1951 (4); British Art and the Modern Movement 1930–40, Welsh Committee of the Arts Council, National Museum of Wales, Cardiff, October- November 1962 (147); R.A. 1967 (57).
Repr. Sir Kenneth Clark, Paintings of Graham Bell, 1947, No. 16, pl. 9.