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Overview
William Westley Manning (1868-1954) was a British landscape painter, etcher and aquatinter. Born in Marylebone, London, he studied initially at the Slade School of Fine Art, at the Académie Julian, Paris in 1892, and then at the Central School of Arts and Crafts under Malcolm Osborne. He was a prolific exhibitor including the Baillie Gallery, Chenil Gallery, Fine Art Society, Goupil Gallery, New English Art Club, Royal Academy, Royal Institute of Oil Painters and at many other venues in England and abroad. He was elected RBA in 1901, Associate of the Society of Painter-Etchers (ARE), 1919 and member of the Royal Institute of |Painters (ROI), 1918; he travelled extensively and was a frequent visitor to Cornwall and a member of the St Ives Society of Artists 1938-49. His work is in many public collections including the Victoria & Albert Museum and the British Museum.
This attractive aquatint, a medium in which Manning excelled, depicts a primitively rustic bridge supported by tree trunks in the picturesque village of Staithes, on the Yorkshire coast, which has associations with Captain James Cook in his youth. In the early 20th century, the village was home to a group of twenty to thirty artists known as the "Staithes group" or the "Northern Impressionists". The group contained renowned artists such as Edward E. Anderson, Joseph R. Bagshawe, Thomas Barrett and James W. Booth, and was inspired by other impressionists such as Monet, Cézanne and Renoir. Dame Laura Knight became the most famous member of the Staithes Group; she and her husband and fellow painter Harold Knight kept a studio in the village. Manning would certainly have been acquainted with them.
See:
British Museum, 'William Westley Manning (Biographical details)', http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/search_the_collection_database/term_details.aspx?bioId=116016
Wikipedia, 'Staithes', https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staithes
Dr Mark Stocker Curator, Historical International Art May 2018