Young man reading

by Albert Ranney Chewett (1877–1965)

The Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami once said that reading a book was like “opening a window to the soul, and letting fresh air pass through.”

In this painting we see a young man, possibly a student, sitting outside and reading a small book bound in brown leather, His black 3-way cravat contrasts nicely with his dark eyelashes and his somewhat unkempt brown hair. He’s seated in the shade. We can almost feel the cool air and smell the aroma of the garden surrounding him.

Albert Ranney Chewett (1877–1965) was a Canadian painter, who specialized in domestic scenes. But unusually for his age, he was also interested in photography and radio productions. His paintings have a calm, and soothing quality to them.

The son of one of Toronto’s wealthiest families, he moved to England in the late 1890s, and trained as an artist in Paris at the Académie Julian. He eventually retired in the small town of Bushey, Hertfordshire.

Self-portrait of the artist, holding a palette.

The color green held a lifelong fascination for Chewett, and it comes through as a consistent theme in his paintings. This lends them a certain freshness and crispness that makes them quite modern. See below for some examples.

The Library window (notice the various shades of green)

The artist’s mother in the drawing room (also very green)

Teatime (green again…you get the picture…)

Today Chewett is a largely unknown figure in the artworld. He doesn’t even have a wikipedia page. But there’s a certain gentleness and refinement that comes through in his palette that makes these paintings quite remarkable.

They’re unassuming snapshots of a way of life that was already beginning to fade away. They may not be ‘masterpieces’ in any convential sense of the word, but they resonate nonetheless. I believe one can feel the love and affection the artist poured into his works. They remind me of illustrations for a children’s book. And I wish more people knew about them.

Hope they bring you joy as well.

Julian

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