Skip to main content
Want more images or videos?
Request additional images or videos from the seller
1 of 5

Claude Muncaster
Claude Muncaster: 1948 City of New York Maritime Art watercolour ship steamer

c. 1950

About the Item

We acquired a series of paintings from Claude Muncaster's studio. To find more scroll down to "More from this Seller" and below it click on "See all from this seller." Claude Muncaster (1903-1974) Port Alleyway, City of New York, August (1948) Watercolour 21x28cm Signed and inscribed to reverse Provenance: Martin Muncaster, the artist’s son. Claude Grahame Muncaster, RWS, ROI, RBA, SMA was the son of Oliver Hall RA. At the age of fifteen his career as a landscape painter began, and he soon took to the seas, spending the 1920s and 30s travelling the world with his sketchbook in a series of vessels. With the outbreak of war and he joined the RNVR training as a navigator. Having left school at fifteen his mathematics was very weak and it was a relief for all when his artistic talents meant he was recruited as a camofleur. A master of capturing seascapes he was therefore able to hide huge ships ‘in plain sight’ with clever disguises. After the war he painted for the Royal Family and was a frequent guest at Sandringham. Claude Muncaster was a watercolourist known for his landscapes and maritime scenes. He was born Grahame Hall, the son of the Royal Academician Oliver Hall who taught his son to paint from an early age; Grahame first exhibited his work aged 15 and a few years later was showing at the RA. However, he adopted the name Claude Muncaster in 1922 to dissociate his career from that of his father. Muncaster’s primary choice of subject matter came from a genuine love of the sea. He made several long-distance sea voyages, including one around the Horn as a deckhand in the windjammer Olivebank in 1931, which he described in ‘Rolling Round the Horn’, published in 1933. Armed with a sketchbook, his aim was to be able to ‘paint ships and the sea with greater authority’. This he certainly achieved, perfectly capturing the limpid first light of morning over the Port of Aden, the choppy rain-grey waters of the Bay of Biscay and a streak of sunlight through gathering storm clouds at dusk in Exeter. He became an Associate of the Royal Watercolour Society in 1931 and was a founder member, and later President, of the Royal Society of Marine Artists. During the Second World War, Muncaster served in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve (RNVR) from 1940-44, training as a navigator before going on to advise on the camouflage of ships, and also worked as an official war artist. In ‘Still Morning at Aden’ (1944) he depicts Allied warships in this safe anchorage in the Middle East; the back is stamped with Admiralty approval. In 1946-7 he was commissioned by the Queen to produce watercolours of the royal residences at Windsor, Sandringham and Balmoral; the Duke of Edinburgh, in a foreword to a biography of Muncaster, recalls looking at these and considering the artist’s ‘unerring instinct for a subject’, his sense of atmosphere. Other commissions included large panoramas of the Thames and of Bradford. His career also included work as an etcher, illustrator, writer, lecturer and broadcaster, and his paintings can be found in the Royal Academy, Tate, National Maritime Museum Cornwall, National Railway Museum and Royal Air Force Museum.
  • Creator:
    Claude Muncaster (1903 - 1974, British)
  • Creation Year:
    c. 1950
  • Dimensions:
    Height: 8.27 in (21 cm)Width: 11.03 in (28 cm)
  • Medium:
  • Movement & Style:
  • Period:
  • Condition:
    Slight spotting to extreme margins and to reverse, not affecting image.
  • Gallery Location:
    London, GB
  • Reference Number:
    1stDibs: LU79534283632
More From This SellerView All
  • Trinity College Great Gate Cambridge - Richard Henry Wright watercolour c. 1900
    By Richard Henry Wright
    Located in London, GB
    To see our other views of Oxford and Cambridge, scroll down to "More from this Seller" and below it click on "See all from this Seller" - or send us a message if you cannot find the ...
    Category

    Late 19th Century Realist Landscape Drawings and Watercolors

    Materials

    Watercolor

  • Sale Rooms, Mincing Lane, City of London 1815 watercolour (engraved as a print)
    By Robert Blemmell Schnebbelie
    Located in London, GB
    Schnebbelie (Robert Blemmell, circa 1785-1849) The Commercial Sale Rooms, Mincing Lane, City of London. c. 1814 Pencil, pen, ink & watercolour Captioned to mount, "Used as the Cust...
    Category

    1810s Realist Landscape Drawings and Watercolors

    Materials

    Watercolor

  • St John’s College, Cambridge Old Chapel watercolour by George Pyne
    By George Pyne
    Located in London, GB
    To see our other views of Oxford and Cambridge, including others by George Pyne, scroll down to "More from this Seller" and below it click on "See all from this Seller" - or send us a message if you cannot find the view you want. George Pyne (1800 - 1884) St John’s College, Cambridge Old Chapel Watercolour 35 x 23 cm A view of the Old Chapel of St John’s College, Cambridge before its demolition. In 1861, the Fellows of St John’s agreed to mark the seven hundredth jubilee of their college by building a new chapel. Sir George Gilbert...
    Category

    1850s Realist Landscape Drawings and Watercolors

    Materials

    Watercolor

  • Laurence Dunn Otra painting maritime art ship boat coastal shipping
    By Laurence Dunn
    Located in London, GB
    Laurence Dunn (1910-2006) Otra Gouache 11.5x18cm Inscribed to reverse 'Rough sketch for painting of "Otra" commissioned for Capt. F.E. Eagle, whose favourite command she was' and sig...
    Category

    Late 20th Century Realist Landscape Drawings and Watercolors

    Materials

    Gouache

  • Architectural design for a UK Factory 1966 W A A Cox ARIBA Mid century cool art
    Located in London, GB
    To see our other vintage architectural drawings, scroll down to "More from this Seller" and below it click on "See all from this seller"...
    Category

    Mid-20th Century Realist Landscape Drawings and Watercolors

    Materials

    Watercolor

  • Dr William Crotch 1832 Eton College Chapel watercolour Public School Windsor
    By Dr William Crotch
    Located in London, GB
    To see our other views of Eton College, Oxford and Cambridge, scroll down to "More from this Seller" and below it click on "See all from this Seller" - or send us a message if you ca...
    Category

    1830s Realist Landscape Drawings and Watercolors

    Materials

    Watercolor

You May Also Like
  • Winter landscape - XX Century, Watercolor Painting, Realistic View of Woods
    By Dariusz Aniszewski
    Located in Warsaw, PL
    DARIUSZ ANISZEWSKI (born in 1972) Polish painter. He graduated from the Art School in Gdynia Orłowo and then studied painting under the guidance of prof. Antoni Fałat and prof. Andrz...
    Category

    20th Century Realist Landscape Drawings and Watercolors

    Materials

    Paper, Watercolor

  • Apple tree - XX Century, Contemporary Figuratie Watercolor Painting, Dog, Animal
    By Stanislaw Sobolewski
    Located in Warsaw, PL
    Stanislaw Sobolewski (born in 1952) Studied philology at the Jagiellonian University (1971-1976) and painting under prof. Zbigniew Grzybowski at the Academy of Fine Arts (1974-1979)....
    Category

    1990s Realist Animal Drawings and Watercolors

    Materials

    Paper, Watercolor

  • Wroclaw - Contemporary Watercolor & Ink Landscape Painting, Architecture
    By Mariusz Szałajdewicz
    Located in Warsaw, PL
    Mariusz Szalajdewicz (b. 1974) Studied at the Faculty of Architecture at Warsaw University of Technology, where he mastered the drawing skill. Architect and urbanist, illustrator. ...
    Category

    21st Century and Contemporary Realist Landscape Drawings and Watercolors

    Materials

    Ink, Watercolor, Paper

  • "1940 - New Mexico Farmers" Orig. Mixed Media on Board by Tom Perkinson, Framed
    By Tom Perkinson
    Located in Encino, CA
    "1940 - New Mexico Farmers" is an original mixed media on board by Tom Perkinson. His use of saturated violets, vivid yellows, and resplendent oranges pushes color to almost-otherwor...
    Category

    1970s Realist Landscape Paintings

    Materials

    Pastel, Ink, Mixed Media, Watercolor, Color Pencil

  • October 3:30 PM sketch
    By Edward Minoff
    Located in Greenwich, CT
    Sketch for Minoff's painting October 3:30 PM.
    Category

    2010s Realist Landscape Drawings and Watercolors

    Materials

    Gouache, Graphite, Paper

  • 19th Century Loch Tay Scottish Landscape
    By Aaron Edwin Penley
    Located in Soquel, CA
    Masterful Scottish watercolor landscape of Loch Tay with boats and small figures on the short by Aaron Edwin Penley (English, 1826-1897)....
    Category

    1870s Realist Landscape Drawings and Watercolors

    Materials

    Paper, Watercolor

Recently Viewed

View All