From Waterloo Bridge

The present work belongs to a group of several views of the River Thames which Nevinson painted in the late 1930s. Here we are looking towards Hungerford Railway Bridge, with the Shot Tower on the left. Hungerford Railway Bridge was built to carry the South Eastern Railway across the Thames to its new West End terminus at Charing Cross. It was completed in 1864 to the designs of Sir John Hawkshaw and replaced Isambard Kingdom Brunel's Hungerford Suspension Bridge of 1841-45. The Shot Tower was built in 1826 and pulled down in 1962.

By the 1930s, driven both by his experiences in the First World War and a sense of alienation from his artistic peers and critics, Nevinson sought out more conventionally picturesque subjects, and London, especially the Thames, was a constant source of inspiration for the artist. Nevinson had an intimate knowledge of London; ‘for a man whose opinions were so often changeable, his sustained regard for London, Londoners and the English countryside remained satisfyingly constant’ (J. Black, C.R.W. Nevinson, The Complete Prints, Farnham, 2014, p. 63). In the present work, the sun bursts through fog onto the Thames, the gentle movement of the glittering water taking central stage.

A similar composition by the artist, The Temporary Waterloo Bridge, 1938 is in the collection of the Museum of London. It looks towards the Temporary Waterloo Bridge from a point just beyond Hungerford Bridge (see M. Galinou and J. Hayes, London in Paint: Oil Paintings in the Collection at the Museum of London, London, 1996, p. 427, no. 184).