Surprisingly little can be found on this brilliant artist. He was born in 1925 and was a painter and printmaker working in England. In 1976 he published a book titled ‘A History of Watercolor’. It looks at watercolour paintings from ancient Egypt to the present, including works from China and India, as well as Europe, and discusses the colours, brushes, and papers used in watercolours.
Apart from watercolours he was clearly a very accomplished printmaker and his work can be found in major collections including the Tate Gallery. His prints largely date from the 1960s and 1970s and are very colourful. The style is reminiscent of work by other British artists of the time including Geoffrey Elliott, Edward Bawden, Bernard Cheese or Robert Tavener. Most of his prints feature Brighton and this one is no exception. It is a lithograph from 1968 and shows a great, quintessentially British scene of Brighton beach. A few fishing vessels are prominently placed centre stage. On the extreme left we can just see part of Brighton Pier and on the right there is a row of elegant seaside hotels.
In front of the boats are three characters seated. The man on the left appears to be a fisherman mending his nets but the two others seem to be ladies that just came for a chat. The one furthest to the right even seems to have brought some sort of ‘Mary Poppins like’ carpet bag. It is a nice sunny day but probably still a bit nippy and somehow you expect she will soon be taking out a thermos flask with some nice hot tea and perhaps even a crumbly flapjack.
While most of Brett’s lithographs have very strong colours, the colours here are a bit more subdued but very effective nevertheless in conveying this great British scene.
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