Oil paint on canvas
Tate Collection
Works with images
General Collection
Chantrey Bequest
Collection
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/andre-derain-998" aria-label="More by André Derain" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">André Derain</a>
Pool London
Presented by the Trustees of the Chantrey Bequest 1951
adults
architecture
boat - non-specific
crane
dock
dockyard
England
figure
industrial
objects
people
places
river
River Thames, Pool of London
society
tools and machinery
Tower Bridge
townscapes / man-made features
transport: water
UK countries and regions
UK London
UK natural features
water: inland
waterfront
<p>This view of the Thames from London Bridge is one of four works painted by Derain, showing the same part of the river. At this time he was a leading member of the fauve group of painters in Paris. He had been sent to London by his dealer to update the popular Thames views painted by Claude Monet a few years earlier. Strongly-coloured and freely-handled, this painting is characteristic of fauvism in creating vivid effects through bold contrasts of colour.</p><p><em>Gallery label, February 2016</em></p>
painting oil paint canvas
21 November 2005 – 23 October 2011
2011-10-23
21 November 2005 – 23 October 2011
2011-10-23
2005-11-21
Tate Modern (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/
2005-11-21
Expressionism
Collection based display
14 April 2006 – 30 July 2006
2006-07-30
14 April 2006 – 30 July 2006
2006-07-30
2006-04-14
Palazzo Ducale (Genoa, Italy)
http://www.palazzoducale.genova.it
2006-04-14
Modern Time.  Work, machinery and automation in the arts of 1900
Loan-out
10 November 2006 – 19 February 2007
2007-02-19
10 November 2006 – 19 February 2007
2007-02-19
2006-11-10
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2006-11-10
Norham Castle
Collection based display
29 September 2012 – 20 January 2013
2013-01-20
29 September 2012 – 20 January 2013
2013-01-20
2012-09-29
Museum Folkwang (Essen, Germany)
2012-09-29
The Ecstasy of Colour - Munch, Matisse and the Expressionists
Loan-out
19 September 2013 – 12 January 2014
2014-01-12
19 September 2013 – 12 January 2014
2014-01-12
2013-09-19
Albertina Museum (Vienna, Austria)
http://www.albertina.at/en
2013-09-19
Henri Matisse and the Fauves
Loan-out
2 November 2017 – 14 October 2018
2018-10-14
2 November 2017 – 7 May 2018
2018-05-07
2017-11-02
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
21 June 2018 – 14 October 2018
2018-10-14
2018-06-21
Petit Palais, Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris (Paris, France)
2017-11-02
Impressionists in London: French Artists in Exile, 1870-1904
Exhibition
2 November 2017 – 14 October 2018
2018-10-14
20 June 2018 – 14 October 2018
2018-10-14
2018-06-20
Petit Palais, Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris (Paris, France)
2017-11-02
Impressionists in London: French Artists in Exile, 1870 - 1904
Loan-out
16 November 2019 – 29 February 2020
2020-02-29
16 November 2019 – 29 February 2020
2020-02-29
2019-11-16
Perth Museum & Art Gallery (Perth, UK)
http://www.pkc.gov.uk/
2019-11-16
JD Fergusson
Loan-out
1 September 2023 – 31 January 2024
2024-01-31
1 September 2023 – 31 January 2024
2024-01-31
2023-09-01
Kunstmuseum Basel | Neubau (Basel, Switzerland)
2023-09-01
Derain, Matisse and the Fauves. 1904-08
Loan-out
6 February 2025 – 28 June 2025
2025-06-28
6 February 2025 – 28 June 2025
2025-06-28
2025-02-06
Dovecot Studios (Edinburgh, UK)
2025-02-06
The Scottish Colourists and their World
Loan-out
The Pool of London
support: 657 × 991 mm
frame: 794 × 1130 × 76 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> 1951
<div class="text">
<p>This view of the Thames from London Bridge is one of four works painted by Derain, showing the same part of the river. At this time he was a leading member of the fauve group of painters in Paris. He had been sent to London by his dealer to update the popular Thames views painted by Claude Monet a few years earlier. Strongly-coloured and freely-handled, this painting is characteristic of fauvism in creating vivid effects through bold contrasts of colour.</p>
</div>

Display caption
2016-02-10T00:00:00
display-caption
DISPLAY_CAPTION
<p><b>André Derain</b><span> 1880-1954 </span>
<br/></p>
<p><span><a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/derain-the-pool-of-london-n06030" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N06030</span></a> </span><b>The Pool of London</b><span> 1906 </span>
<br/></p>
<p><span>Not inscribed</span>
<br/><span>Oil on canvas, 25 7/8 x 39 (65.5 x 99)</span>
<br/><span>Chantrey Purchase 1951</span>
<br/><i>Prov:</i><span>
With Ambroise Vollard, Paris (purchased from the artist); with Reid and Lefevre, London; Dr T.J. Honeyman, London and Glasgow, 1939; through Roland, Browse and Delbanco, London; Chantrey Trustees 1951</span>
<br/><i>Exh:</i><span>
</span><i>'The Thames 1907'. Derain</i><span>, Lefevre Gallery, London, December 1937 (10); </span><i>Delacroix to Dufy</i><span>, W. Scott and Son, Montreal, October 1938 (11); </span><i>Loan Exhibition of English and French Paintings</i><span>, Assembly Hall, St Helens, April-May 1939 (63); Morecambe and Heysham Art and Technical School, June 1939 (80); </span><i>Loan Exhibition of French and English Paintings</i><span>, Southampton Art Gallery, July-August 1939 (7); </span><i>French Paintings of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries</i><span>, Glasgow City Art Gallery, June 1943 (61); </span><i>40 Years of Modern Art</i><span>, ICA, Academy Hall, London, February-March 1948 (21, repr. in illustrated supplement pl.1 in colour); XXV Biennale, Venice, June-October 1950 (Derain 13); </span><i>Fauve Painting in France and Abroad</i><span>, Roland, Browse and Delbanco, London, March-April 1951 (10); RA, London, May-August 1952 (729); </span><i>André Derain 1880-1954</i><span>, Wildenstein Gallery, London, April-May 1957 (10); </span><i>Derain before 1915</i><span>, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, November 1961-January 1962 (works not numbered); </span><i>Derain</i><span>, RSA, Edinburgh, August-September 1967 (22, repr.); RA, London, September-November 1967 (22, repr.); </span><i>The Impressionists in London</i><span>, Hayward Gallery, London, January-March 1973 (56, repr.)</span>
<br/><i>Lit:</i><span>
Ambroise Vollard, </span><i>Recollections of a Picture Dealer</i><span>
(London 1936), p.201; Sunday Express Art Editor, 'A £10 Picture the Artist forgot is bought for £1500' in </span><i>Sunday Express</i><span>, 4 May 1952, p.8 repr.; Denys Sutton, 'André Derain: Art as Fate' in </span><i>Encounter</i><span>, V, October 1955, p.69</span>
<br/><i>Repr:</i><span>
</span><i>Art Vivant</i><span>, No.54, 15 March 1927, p.208; </span><i>Cahiers d'Art</i><span>, 1929, p.178; </span><i>Studio</i><span>, CXLI, 1951, p.97 in colour; </span><i>The Tate Gallery</i><span> (London 1969), p.106 in colour </span>
<br/></p>
<p><span>The Pool of London with Tower Bridge in the background; apparently painted from London Bridge. </span>
<br/></p>
<p><span>Derain himself wrote to the President of the Royal Academy: 'The picture ... was painted at that point on the Thames about the month of April 1906 for I left my working materials on that boat. But in all fairness I must add that back in Paris after some damages caused by the voyage I was obliged to repair and retouch the <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/c/canvas" title="Glossary definition for 'Canvas'"><span>canvas</span></a> in several places' (letter of 25 January 1952). </span>
<br/></p>
<p><span>Later he added (letter to the compiler, 15 May 1953): '... This picture is of 1906. It was one of a group of pictures which I made for M. Vollard who had sent me to London at that time so that I could make some <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/painting" title="Glossary definition for 'Painting'"><span>paintings</span></a> for him. After a stay in London he was very enthusiastic and wanted paintings inspired by the London atmosphere. He sent me in the hope of renewing completely at that date the expression which Claude Monet had so strikingly achieved which had made a very strong impression in Paris in the preceding years. </span>
<br/></p>
<p><span>'The majority of these pictures were among the canvases which he kept by him. He sold a few but many remained and were dispersed in the sales made by his heirs.' </span>
<br/></p>
<p><span>The paintings by Monet to which Derain referred were the views of the Thames executed during various visits to London from 1899 to 1904 and exhibited in Paris in May-June 1904. But whereas Monet painted series of canvases of the same three motifs - Waterloo Bridge, Charing Cross Bridge and the Houses of Parliament - Derain moved his pitch almost every time, working at a number of points along the Thames from the Houses of Parliament to as far east as Greenwich (though he also executed a few pictures in Regent Street and Hyde Park). They may be compared with the pictures which he painted of the Seine at Chatou in the years before in the company of Vlaminck. </span>
<br/></p>
<p><span>This particular site, with its bustle of shipping, evidently had special attraction for him, as at least four other oils of the view across the Pool of London to Tower Bridge are known: </span>
<br/></p>
<p><span>1. 'Tower Bridge' (66 x 96cm)</span>
<br/><span>Repr. Georges Hilaire, </span><i>Derain</i><span>
(Geneva 1959), pl.25 </span>
<br/></p>
<p><span>2. 'The Thames' (65 x 98cm)</span>
<br/><span>Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam</span>
<br/><span>Repr. Hilaire, op. cit., pl.29 </span>
<br/></p>
<p><span>3. 'The Thames' (81 x 100cm)</span>
<br/><span>Repr. Hilaire, op. cit., pl.26 </span>
<br/></p>
<p><span>4. 'On the Thames' (73 x 92cm)</span>
<br/><span>Repr. Hilaire, op. cit., pl.28 </span>
<br/></p>
<p><span>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/w/watercolour" title="Glossary definition for 'Watercolour'"><span>watercolour</span></a> in the Descaves sale at the Hôtel Drouot, Paris, on 23 March 1919 (lot 16, repr.) as 'The Thames in London' was probably done as a sketch for the last-named of these oils. A further <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/g/gouache" title="Glossary definition for 'Gouache'"><span>gouache</span></a> of 'The Pool of London' was included in the </span><i>Summer Exhibition</i><span> at the O'Hana Gallery, London, in June-September 1964 (15, repr. in colour). </span>
<br/></p>
<p><b>Published in:</b>
<br/><span>Ronald Alley, </span><i>Catalogue of the Tate Gallery's Collection of Modern Art other than Works by British Artists</i><span>, Tate Gallery and Sotheby Parke-Bernet, London 1981, pp.167-8, reproduced p.167</span>
<br/></p>

Catalogue entry
2004-09-21T00:00:00
catalogue-entry
CATALOGUE_ENTRY
adults architecture boat - non-specific crane dock dockyard England figure industrial objects people places river River Thames, Pool of London society tools and machinery Tower Bridge townscapes / man-made features transport: water UK countries and regions UK London UK natural features waterfront water: inland