Castagniers, ca. 1959

Sir Roger de Grey PRA (1918 - 1995)

RA Collection: Art

Roger de Grey was born in Buckinghamshire. His subjects were often the landscapes around his home in Kent and also the south-west of France. He first visited France in the late 1930s and fell in love with the landscapes along the Cote d'Azur.

De Grey had no interest in creating a literal transcription of a landscape but wanted to evoke the sensation of the space and atmosphere of the place. In describing his painting method De Grey stated that he started immediately on the canvas trying to get his feelings down, and then tried to create some order. 'I move a lot when I paint', he explained, 'so the disorganisation that appears is an amalgam of an infinite number of "looks", each from a slightly different position'.