British-born artist John Stobart, who has earned a reputation as one of the world’s foremost maritime painters for his provocative, meticulously researched oil paintings of 19th-century harbors and tall ships, Died at Wellesley on the 2nd. Mass. he was 93 years old.
His death was confirmed by his wife, Anne Fletcher.
A graduate of the Royal Academy of Arts, Stobart moved to the United States in 1970. Around this time, conceptual art, op his art, and minimalism were riding the wave of abstract expressionism.
Friendly, reserved, and unmistakably outspoken, Mr. Stobart had none of it. “I never bought it and the general public never bought it,” he said of abstract art in a 1986 interview with The Boston Globe.
Instead, he conjures the past as a master of detailed historical works full of schooners, brigs and sloops, their sails fluttering beneath sullen clouds and coastal lights twinkling in the distance.
Living in Medfield, Massachusetts, Mr. Stobart worked in studios in the Boston area, Martha’s Vineyard, and several other locations. His brave tale of a naval hero.
Leaving no detail to chance, he traveled the places he painted, examined old daguerreotypes of harbors and ships, went to sea on various ships, and learned the most esoteric about their engineering and behavior on water. I learned a point.
“He went on a tug to see what it would look like in a storm,” Fletcher said in a phone interview. “He knew that if the ship was towed, there would be no slack in the line. He understood the movements of the water, the tides, the sun and the moon.”
Wealthy patrons paid attention. Notable clients include mustard makers Walter Cronkite and Charles Goulden.His works are European castles such as Dun & Bradstreet, corporate headquarters, and American Merchant Marine Museum in Kingspoint, New York National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, England.
From the beginning, Mr. Stobart was not interested in the starving artist archetype. “He didn’t want to be stereotyped, wear sandals and have a long beard just because he’s an artist,” he told The Globe. “I wanted to succeed”
Stobart was born in Leicester, England on December 29, 1929. His mother, Marguerite (Barrett) Stobart, died during his childbirth and suffered from pyloric stenosis, a disorder of her stomach and intestines, when she was a baby.
He survived three years in hospital and grew up in the hinterland Derbyshire countryside. But when he visited his grandmother in Liverpool when he was eight years old, he once recalled, “I saw a ship on the Mersey.” “They blew my mind.”
His father, Lancelot Stobart, was a successful drugstore owner who tormented his son to overcome academic failures (he once failed in every subject except geography). “He said to him, ‘You’ll never put bread on the table if you do that,'” Ms. Fletcher said.
“My father never thought I would make it,” Stobart told the Los Angeles Times.
Eventually his father relented and sent him to the Derby School of Art where he flourished and was admitted to the Royal Academy of Arts in London, where he admired his landscapes.
He served in the Royal Air Force in the early 1950s. His father then sent him on an ocean liner to South Africa, where he became fascinated by the details of the ship. Sensing commercial opportunities in maritime art, he soon made a living in England and Canada, painting for shipping companies.
By the mid-1980s he was The first of his three books, Rediscovering America’s Maritime Heritage, was making $2.5 million a year, thanks in part to a lucrative business selling first edition prints. In recent years, his originals have sold for $15,000 to his $400,000 through Rehs Galleries in New York.
In addition to his wife. he survived by his daughters, Elizabeth Stobart and Diana Wilde. His son, Bill, from his first marriage to Kay (Arscott) Stobart. and three grandchildren.
Mr Stobart has never been ashamed of his commercial acumen. Cronkite once compared his use of light to that of the famous British landscape painter John Constable. Mr. Stobart deflected this compliment.
The only place his expertise with boats failed was on the high seas.
“As a sailor, he was terrible,” said his wife. “Once, on Walter Cronkite’s yacht, he was told to tighten the sheets, but John didn’t know what Walter wanted. Another time, he said, ‘You must read the map.’ What do you mean by must?”no one wanted to be on the boat with me he. “
