Edward Seago (1910 - 1974)

For half a century Edward Seago epitomised commercial artistic success: his shows at home and abroad sold out within days - sometimes minutes - of opening and an adoring public queued for his latest offerings.  He was the artistic mentor of princes and the close friend of the generals, playwrights and actors of his day.  Yet throughout, and in spite of, continual public acclaim, Seago suffered persistent self doubt as to the ultimate value of his work.

After a wartime career, which included his appointment as Official Artist to the Italian Campaign, Seago retired to the "Dutch House" on the Norfolk Broads to paint.  Here he found peace amongst the flat atmospheric countryside of his youth and a proximity to the sea that allowed him as escape by boat to Antwerp, Ostend and Paris.  After a number of successful painting expeditions in his yacht "Capricorn" (which culminated in the publication of "With Capricorn to Paris"), she was sold in favour of a studio in Sardina.  Seago was to return to paint the Mediterranean there each year.  His taste for travel whetted, Seago's overseas trips grew in distance and duration.  Of all his trips abroad his Italian and Hong Kong sojourns are perhaps his best known works, whilst at home it is his Norfolk landscapes for which he is best remembered.

He worked within a long tradition of British painting and is heir to the great landscape artists: Wilson, Gainsborough, Crome and Cotman, but most of all to the mould-breaking sincerity of John Constable.  His desire to represent nature never once sunk to slavish imitation.  Instead Seago's strength lay in the ability to resist the temptation to crowd his paintings, always conveying the maximum content and emotion with a deceptive simplicity.

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