Description
Sue Atkinson (1949-2021) – Romance on the Beach
Artist – Sue Atkinson (1949-2021)
Title – Romance on the Beach. Rhosneigr, Anglesey
Oil on Board
Painting Size – 16 x 12″ Inches (In original frame – size 22 x 18″ Inches)
Signed bottom left
Sue Atkinson (1949-2021) – Romance on the Beach
Sue Atkinson (1949-2021)
Born in Bradford in 1949, artist Sue Atkinson was the daughter of a Bradford wool merchant and attended Wakefield College of Art. She painted in both her studio and on the beach at Runswick Bay, a scenic village on the Yorkshire Coast just outside Whitby. In 1999 she was South Yorkshire Artist of the Year, and won numerous other prizes and awards.
Sue Atkinson’s paintings have a magical, naive quality and her quirky portraits and landscapes are in great demand. Whether watercolour, oils or gouache her work is packed with real life and movement. Her beach paintings are especially energetic and sought after. She referred to her own work as ‘the great escape’, as it allows her to give free rein to her imagination. Many of her beach and landscape paintings have an engaging feeling of space and freedom which has ensured a steady market for her work.
“Painting, for me, is the Great Escape,” she says. “At first it was all ‘plein air’ often on the moors above Holmfirth. The sea gave me an equal feeling of space and freedom. With their similar patterns, there were times when I changed a sea painting into a woodland one, and vice versa. Now, I do much of my work in the studio, which gives my imagination more rein. People can be a focal point. Those I have sketched or photographed on site become more naive and energetic in the studio.”
Exhibitions include: Royal Academy Summer Exhibition; the New English Art Club; the Royal Society of Painters in Watercolours, London; the Royal Society of Marine Artists, London; the Singer and Friedlander/Sunday Times Watercolour Competition; Bretton Hall, West Yorkshire; Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough; Northern Prospects at Harewood House; Eton College, Windsor.
Sue’s paintings have won a number of awards including: South Yorkshire Artist of the Year; Manchester Academy Small Picture Award; Hull Ferens Open Exhibition; Discerning Eye; the Laing Landscape; Royal Watercolour Society Saunders Waterford Award.
Sue sadly passed away in 2021
