View Of Piha Beach, New Zealand, Dated 1936 By Samuel John Lamorna Birch Ra, Rws

View of Piha Beach, New Zealand, dated 1936 by Samuel John Lamorna Birch RA, RWS (1869-1955) Large 1936 view of Piha Beach, New Zealand, oil on canvas by Samuel John Lamorna Birch. Excellent quality and rare condition, example of the artist's work during his visit to Australia and New Zealand 1936-1937. Unframed, signed and inscribed. Signed, inscribed and dated SJ Lamorna Birch - Study. Piha / 1936 (lower right) and inscribed MORNING SON THE BOWL (on reverse) Dimensions: 24" x 20" unframed approximately Property of Bill Thomson, Albany Gallery Samuel John Lamorna Birch, RA, RWS, RWA British, 1869- 1955 Samuel John Lamorna Birch was born in Egremont, Cheshire on June 7, 1869. As a child he moved to Manchester and later to Halton, near Lancaster, working in an office or mill and painting at dawn or dusk sun before and after working hours. As a result, Birch was a self-taught artist, but he spent a year in Paris at the Atelier Colarossi between 1895 and 1896. From 1889 he visited Cornwall regularly and was influenced by Stanhope Forbes, who settled in Newlyn in 1884 and who founded the Newlyn School of Art in 1899 with his wife Elizabeth Adela Armstrong. In 1897 Birch settled in St. Buryan and moved in 1902 (the year of his marriage) to Lamorna, near Penzance. At this time there was an artist named Lionel Birch living in Newlyn and at the suggestion of Stanhope Forbes, Samuel John Birch took on the additional name of Lamorna in order to distinguish himself. Much of his work was done in Cornwall, but he was not confined to that area as he was an avid fisherman and he made frequent visits to Scotland, Wales, the North West of England and in the West Country to please his twin. passions for painting and fishing. Lamorna Birch established an excellent reputation and exhibited his work widely, including 227 paintings at the Royal Academy, where he exhibited for fifty consecutive years between 1905 and his death on 7 January 1955 in Lamorna. Lamorna Birch has exhibited at the Royal Academy, Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, Manchester City Art Gallery and the Royal Society of Painters in Watercolours. The artist's works are in the Tate Gallery, London.