Near Swanage, Dorset by Mark Gertler.

Mark Gertler painted this view of Ballard Down and Old Harry rocks in 1916, while he was staying with his friend Montague Shearman at Peveril House in Swanage, a place he loved.


This picture was probably painted in December 1916 while Gertler was staying at Peveril House, Swanage in Dorset, which was the holiday home of his friend, Francophile collector Montague Shearman. The scene has an impression of serenity, an aspect of life that Gertler, a pacifist, was endeavouring to seek during World War I.

In a letter to Carrington he wrote, "From every window one gets a good enough view for painting… The sea surrounds the house on two sides. There is just a bit of garden and then cliff, below that is the open sea!".

At the Slade, he made friends with C. R. W. Nevinson, the celebrated first world war artist, and Dora Carrington, Gertler's greatest love until her suicide in 1932. She neither reciprocated his devotion nor was prepared to let him go, and this relationship came close to destroying him.
For Carrington, however, their mutual fascination was emphatically spiritual rather than sexual and in the coming years she led him a merry dance, always keeping him on a string but sleeping with him only in the last resort.

He was terribly alone - in 1932, his beloved mother had died and, after Strachey's death from cancer, Carrington had shot herself; six years later, Ottoline gave up the ghost.
His final show, though admired by Duncan Grant, was not a commercial success. In 1939, Gertler dragged a mattress into his studio at the bottom of the garden, stuffed it against the door, closed the windows, turned on the gas and lay down to die. He left no note.

Mark Gertler committed suicide.
He was 47.

Марк Гертлер (англ. Mark Gertler, род. 2 декабря 1891 года, Лондон — ум. 23 июня 1939 года, там же) — английский художник.
Был влюблен в Дору Кэррингтон.
…страдал туберкулезом и депрессией; его работы вышли из моды, и его доход иссяк.
Организованная в конце 30-х годов выставка его работ провалилась, вскоре после чего художник покончил жизнь самоубийством в своей мастерской.