Martyn MACKRILL

( 1962)

Working Aloft

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Pen and brown ink and watercolour, over a pencil underdrawing.
Signed and dated Martyn R. Mackrill 09 at the lower left.
569 x 449 mm. (22 3/8 x 17 5/8 in.) [sheet] 
A drawing of a closely-related composition by Mackrill, executed in pen and black ink and black wash and entitled Aloft, is known.



 
Born on the Isle of Wight, Martyn Mackrill is the son of a marine engineer in the Merchant Navy and grew up around boats and harbours. He studied at Portsmouth Art College and has established a successful career as a painter and illustrator of marine subjects. As the yachting journalist and broadcaster Tom Cunliff has said of him, ‘Martyn Mackrill is now accepted among the foremost marine artists of his generation. For the sake of all those who love the sea as she really is, may his brushes long continue to weave their magic amidst the ever-changing waves.’ Mackrill lives and works today in the village of Freshwater on the Isle of Wight, producing both paintings and works on paper. He is an Honorary Painter to the Royal Thames Yacht Club and the Royal Yacht Squadron at Cowes, both of which own his paintings, as do the Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club and the Royal Solent Yacht Club, while private collectors who have acquired his work include HRH Princess Anne and HRH Prince Henrik of Denmark.

A devoted sailor himself, Mackrill restored a 31-foot gaff-rigged cutter built in 1910 named Nightfall over a period of twelve years. These antique vessels, according to Mackrill, represent the golden age of yachting, and ‘offer not only elegant lines and superb craftsmanship that are pleasing to the eye, but represent the thrill of competition and the spectacle of man struggling against the elements.’ The aesthetic qualities of these yachts inspire many of Mackrill’s works, being in abundance in the Yarmouth harbour, near his studio.

Provenance

Messums, London, in 2009
Christopher Cone and Stanley J. Seeger, Whitby.
 

Exhibition

London, Messums, Martyn R. Mackrill: Home Waters II, 2009, no.48.

 

Martyn MACKRILL

Working Aloft