The Beaver Hat, 1908

Frank Bramley RA (1857 - 1915)

RA Collection: Art

Frank Bramley joined the artists’ colony at Newlyn in 1884 where he painted subjects based on the local Cornish fishing community, often using a limited tonal range. Bramley left Newlyn in 1894 and retired to Grasmere in 1900, after which his style became much looser in technique.

This self-portrait is an example of his later, more impressionistic manner, which results in a work of some bravura. Painted for his wife, it seems to capture the warm-hearted nature of the man, described in an obituary in the Times as ‘modest, quiet, sweet and gentle.’ Sadly Bramley succumbed to a long, debilitating illness shortly after painting this picture and died in 1915 aged 58.