Evening on the Zuyder Zee

item details

NameEvening on the Zuyder Zee

ProductionSydney Mackenzie Litten; artist; c. 1930

Classificationprints, etchings, works on paper

Materialspaper

Materials Summaryetching on green paper

Techniquesetching, drypoint

DimensionsImage: 328mm (width), 237mm (height)

Registration Number1956-0001-12

Credit lineGift of Sir John Ilott, 1956

Overview

In relation to his obvious prowess as a printmaker, there is surprisingly and disappointingly little information that is readily accessible about Sydney Litten (1887-1934). Even the date of his death is often wrongly given as 1949 because of the demise that year of a near namesake, Sidney Litton.

Litten studied art at St Martin's School of Art and etching at the Royal College of Art under Frank Short and became Senior Master at St Martin's, exhibiting at the Royal Academy and the New English Art Club. He did the majority of his work in Spain and Italy, but also the Netherlands. Fifty-one of his prints are recorded in the annual Fine Prints of the Year between 1926 and 1935. Like Whistler and McBey he did his etchings in series such as his Thames images and two Venice Sets of four prints each, done in 1928. Venice was the subject for fifteen etchings, exhibited until 1935, the year after his death in London. Sydney Litten was the father of the artist Maurice Sydney Litten (1919-1979).

The portrait painter and printmaker Andrew Freeth wrote of the older Litten: "To many friends he seemed a gentle faun. His work was sustained on two levels; one - traditional, sensitive, topographical realism, the other - imaginative and poetic...All his work is deeply sincere, soundly drawn and inspired by a genuine passion for nature and an awareness of the mystery which lies behind the usual world."

These qualities are evident in this sensitive, ethereal depiction of a barge with a furled sail and smaller craft on the Zuyder Zee, in the Netherlands. Litten combines etching and drypoint to excellent effect, conveying light, air, water, reflections and time of day. After his triumphant prints of Venice of a few years earlier, it is not surprising that Litten should be attracted to maritime themes somewhat closer at hand.

See: The Annex Galleries, 'Sidney Mackenzie Litten Biography', https://www.annexgalleries.com/artists/biography/1413/Litten/Sidney

Dr Mark Stocker Curator, Historical International Art September 2018