Oil paint on canvas
Tate Britain
Tate Collection
Works with images
Works on display
General Collection
Chantrey Bequest
Collection
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/henry-scott-tuke-555" aria-label="More by Henry Scott Tuke" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Henry Scott Tuke</a>
August Blue
Presented by the Trustees of the Chantrey Bequest 1894
bathing / swimming
boat, rowing
boy
children
Cornwall
England
England, South West
England, Southern
Falmouth Bay
group
groups
harbour
leisure and pastimes
literature (not Shakespeare)
literature and fiction
male
nudes
people
places
recreational activities
sea
seascapes and coasts
ship, sailing
society
Swinburne, Algernon Charles, ‘The Sundew’, 1862
transport: water
UK counties
UK countries and regions
UK natural features
<p>This is one of many pictures Tuke painted of boys bathing around Falmouth Harbour, a common scene at the time. Tuke worked from life and photographs but he idealised the scene. Its poetic title (from Algernon Swinburne’s poem ‘The Sundew’ 1866) reflects the colour that suffuses the composition. Tuke grew up in Cornwall and helped found the Newlyn School, a group of artists based in Newlyn. He was well-known for his portraits of boats as well as people.</p><p><em>Gallery label, September 2020</em></p>
painting oil paint canvas
29 February 2008 – 8 March 2009
2009-03-08
29 February 2008
2008-02-29
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2008-02-29
The Art of Leisure
Collection based display
3 May 2008 – 12 July 2008
2008-07-12
3 May 2008 – 12 July 2008
2008-07-12
2008-05-03
Falmouth Art Gallery (Falmouth, UK)
2008-05-03
Catching the Light: The Sunshine Paintings of Henry Scott Tuke
Loan-out
29 May 2010 – 4 September 2010
2010-09-04
29 May 2010 – 4 September 2010
2010-09-04
2010-05-29
Penlee House Gallery & Museum (Penzance, UK)
2010-05-29
A Cornish Childhood
Loan-out
7 June 2021 – 20 November 2021
2021-11-20
7 June 2021 – 12 September 2021
2021-09-12
2021-06-07
Watts Gallery - Artists’ Village (Compton, UK)
http://www.wattsgallery.org.uk
18 September 2021 – 20 November 2021
2021-11-20
2021-09-18
Falmouth Art Gallery (Falmouth, UK)
2021-06-07
Henry Scott Tuke
Loan-out
26 September 2022
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2022-09-26
Gallery 9
Collection based display
August Blue
support: 1219 × 1829 mm
frame: 1520 × 2130 × 110 mm
Presented by the Trustees of the <a href="/search?gid=999999977" data-gtm-name="tombstone_link_bequest" data-gtm-destination="list-page--search-results">Chantrey Bequest</a> 1894
<div><p><span>This is one of many pictures Henry Scott Tuke painted of boys bathing around Falmouth Harbour, a common scene at the time. Tuke worked from life and photographs, and he idealised the scene. Its poetic title (from Algernon Swinburne’s poem ‘The Sundew’ 1866) reflects the colour that suffuses the composition. Tuke grew up in Cornwall and helped found the Newlyn School, a group of artists based in Newlyn. He was well-known for his portraits of boats as well as people.</span></p></div>
Online caption
2024-04-22T00:00:00
online-caption
ONLINE_CAPTION
<p><a name="Text351"></a><span>The painting has been executed in oil (untested) on canvas using Tuke's characteristic technique. The canvas has a thin and quite porous white or cream priming, applied commercially, which Tuke used as his ground, unmodified by further layers. </span>
<br/>
<br/><span>His first applications of paint are thin, dry and matt in appearance, closely following the canvas texture. The medium of this first layer of paint may have been partially absorbed by the ground. Further paint layers are more 'fat', forming a glossy and slick surface in areas of the sea and the boy's bodies, worked wet in wet. Drying cracks have opened up in this layer in places which lead onto the lower paint layer; for example in the standing boy's flesh and the green shadow under the boat. Tuke made use of rose madder pigment for the boy's complexions and for rosy highlights on the ships on the horizon. These areas fluoresce an orange colour under ultraviolet light. The bow wave below the left most ship fluoresces a green colour, possibly indicating the presence of zinc white which fluoresces a yellow colour and/or cobalt blue which fluoresces with a greenish tone. Areas such as the ships exhibit low but spiky impasto where Tuke has added highlights and details. </span>
<br/>
<br/><span>The painting is in generally good condition. There are some small paint losses and areas of raised craquelure which have been consolidated with wax/resin adhesive in the past but appear stable at present. An unusual grey staining has affected the lower left corner in the form of splash marks and the top right corner in the form of a large grey patch. The staining does not appear to be the result of something affecting the paint surface. It is more likely to be a transparency problem caused by a contaminant, perhaps mould, deeper in the paint structure. When one considers that Tuke painted his canvases 'en plein air' aboard boats afloat on the sea this is perhaps less surprising. A discoloured varnish was removed during the current treatment and structural weakness of the stretcher was corrected. The frame, which was in very poor condition, is being restored.  </span>
<br/><span> </span>
<br/></p>
<h1 class="heading_1">
<a name="Heading10"></a>Helen Brett</h1>
<p><span>April 2000</span>
<br/></p>

Technique and condition
2003-10-10T00:00:00
technique-and-condition
TECHNIQUE_AND_CONDITION_TEXT
<p><b>N01613</b> AUGUST BLUE 1893–4
<br/>
<br/>Inscr. ‘H. S. Tuke 1894’ b.l.
<br/>Canvas, 48×72 (122×183).
<br/>Chantrey Purchase from the artist 1894.
<br/><i>Exh:</i> R.A., 1894 (307); R.A., <i>Late Members</i>, winter 1933 (273).
<br/><i>Lit:</i> C. Kains-Jackson in <i>Magazine of Art</i>, 1902, pp.342–3, repr. p.339; Sainsbury, 1933 pp.111–12.
<br/><i>Repr:</i> <i>Royal Academy Pictures</i>, 1894, p.59; Sir Edward J. Poynter, <i>The National Gallery</i>, III, 1900, p.280.</p>
<p>Begun in Falmouth Harbour during the summer of 1893. The title is a quotation from Algernon Swinburne's ‘The Sundew’, the last verse of which runs:</p>
<p>The hard sun, as thy petals knew,
<br/>Coloured the heavy moss-water;
<br/>Thou wert not worth green midsummer
<br/>Nor fit to live to August blue,
<br/>O Sundew, not remembering her.</p>
<p>The Sundew is a marsh plant, described by the poet as ‘yellow green, and pricked at lip with tender red’.</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, II
<br/>
<br/></p>

Catalogue entry
2004-07-16T00:00:00
catalogue-entry
CATALOGUE_ENTRY
bathing / swimming boat, rowing boy children Cornwall England England, Southern England, South West Falmouth Bay group groups harbour leisure and pastimes literature and fiction literature (not Shakespeare) male nudes people places recreational activities sea seascapes and coasts ship, sailing society Swinburne, Algernon Charles, ‘The Sundew’, 1862 transport: water UK counties UK countries and regions UK natural features