The beach at Runswick Bay

Born in Dewsbury, Yorkshire, Mark Senior studied first at Wakefield School of Art, and from 1895 at the Slade where he was taught and befriended by Philip Wilson Steer. In 1906 Senior accompanied Steer on a painting trip to Walberswick, and although the early influence of Clausen's poetic feeling for nature never left him, Senior's technique increasingly reflected the influence of Steer, Whistler and the Impressionists. The sophisticated technical skill of the present lot, employing dense layers of paint, and spontaneous, broken brushwork is reminiscent of Lavery's beach scenes. Senior was one of the first group of artists painting en plein air along the Yorkshire coast, and he will forever be associated with his colourful, impressionistic paintings of Runswick Bay where he spent each summer.