To date over 1500 works on paper have been catalogued. This includes watercolours, gouache, mixed media and pencil, pen and ink, chalk and pastel drawings, but does not include the hundreds of studies made for each of the large mural commissions. Brangwyn was a workaholic and found it difficult to keep still, he was endlessly scribbling and sketching, and experimenting – many of his works combine a mixture of watercolour, gouache, powder colour, tempera, pencil, pen, waxed crayon – whatever happened to be within his reach at the time. Large areas of the white or tinted paper were often left untouched.
The watercolours are mainly travel documents, showing landscapes, townscapes, rivers and bridges. Unlike the oils people do not dominate the scene and the colours are far more subdued.
The fees involved in gaining copyright permission from art galleries and museums to illustrate their works on my website precludes my ability to show some of Brangwyn’s best or more representative works on paper. I have therefore illustrated works believed to have been destroyed or where the owner is currently unknown and Paul Liss has given me permission to use images from his website. Click on link for larger image and more information.
