Oil paint on canvas
Tate Collection
Works with images
General Collection
Collection
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/cecil-gordon-lawson-335" aria-label="More by Cecil Gordon Lawson" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Cecil Gordon Lawson</a>
August Moon
Presented by the artist's widow 1883
animals: mammals
astronomy
cow
emotions, concepts and ideas
England
England, South East
England, Southern
field
formal qualities
landscape
moon
night
places
seasons
silhouette
stream
summer
Surrey
times of the day
UK counties
UK countries and regions
water: inland
wooded
painting oil paint canvas
The August Moon
support: 1689 × 3045 mm
Presented by the artist's widow 1883
<p><b>N01142</b> THE AUGUST MOON 1880
<br/> 
<br/>Inscr. ‘Cecil Lawson 1880’ b.r.
<br/>Canvas, 66 1/2×120 1/2 (169×306).
<br/>Presented by Mrs Cecil Lawson to the National Gallery in fulfilment of her husband's wishes 1883; transferred 1897.
<br/><i>Exh:</i> <i>Summer Exhibition</i>, Grosvenor Gallery, 1880 (20); Grosvenor Gallery, winter 1882–3 (236).
<br/><i>Lit:</i>
Richard and Samuel Redgrave, <i>A Century of British Painters</i>, 2nd ed., 1890 (Phaidon ed., 1947, p.392); Heseltine Owen, ‘In Memoriam: Cecil Gordon Lawson’ in <i>Magazine of</i> Art, 1894, pp.69–70; Anon., ‘Cecil Lawson's “Harvest Moon”’ in <i>Art Journal</i>, 1909, p.102, repr.
<br/><i>Repr:</i> <i>The Nation's Pictures</i>, 1901, I, p.42 (in colour); <i>Tate Gallery Illustrations</i>, 1928, pl.74.</p>
<p>Painted at Blackdown, near Haselmere, Surrey. Heseltine Owen visited the spot one night with Lawson: ‘By the time we reached Blackdown, close on midnight, the moon was high in the heavens. I remember Lawson enlarging on the colour there was always in a <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/l/landscape" title="Glossary definition for 'Landscape'"><span>landscape</span></a> in such moonlight. He said that no great painter had yet fully grasped this truth, but that he intended to show it.’ Lawson painted out an owl in the foreground as the result of the critics' disapproval.</p>
<p><b>Published in:</b>
<br/>Mary Chamot, Dennis Farr and Martin Butlin, <i>The Modern British Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture</i>, London 1964, I
<br/></p>

Catalogue entry
2004-09-23T00:00:00
catalogue-entry
CATALOGUE_ENTRY
animals: mammals astronomy cow emotions, concepts and ideas England England, South East England, Southern field formal qualities landscape moon night places seasons silhouette stream summer Surrey times of the day UK counties UK countries and regions water: inland wooded