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`St.Ives Harbour` 
Fred Bottomley (1883-1960)
A sunlit oil by well known English impressionist painter Frederick Bottomley depicting the view from the harbour at St.Ives in Cornwall. Its a well known scene, with the terraces up on the hill and the distinctive buildings on the harbour front. You can see the washing out to dry in the back gardens of the terraces as they tumble down the hill - I think it might be a little more precious these days!  This painting most probably dates from the period 1930-40 when Bottomley was living in St.Ives. The signature is a liittle indistinct but definitely Bottomley`s. The canvas has been laid to board and framed in a contemporary reverse rebate frame colour keyed to the painting. White textured mount and glazed. 
Frederick Bottomley was educated at Truro High School, which is probably where his love of the West Country arose. It would appear that his family lived in Southport, Lancashire. After school he followed his father into the cotton business, but during WW1 left to join the Forces, spending three years in France. After the Armistice he decide to become a painter , and studied at the Slade School of Art between1923-5. Having married, he and his wife moved to St.Ives in 1929, where they lived at `Salubrious House`, Fore Street. Fred worked out of Porthmeor and Dragon studios, Norway Square. After the outbreak of WW2 they appear to have moved back to Southport for a couple of years. Among 10 pictures exhibited at the RA between 1931 and 1944 were paintings of the harbour, slipway and Down along in St.Ives -this may have been one of them! In 1952 he returned permanently to Southport. Bottomley exhibited widely, several times at the Royal Academy and the Royal Institute of Painters in Oils, also the Royal Society of British Artists and the St.Ives Art Society.