Rocks at Carrick

David Sassoon was born at Walton-on-Thames, and was a cousin of the poet Siegfried Sassoon. He trained at the Slade in London under Henry Tonks and Augustus John. He first came to Kirkcudbright in 1920 with the Carlisle artist Joe Simpson. He lived in the town for over 30 years, latterly with his family at 3/5 High Street. Carrick, at the mouth of the Fleet near Gatehouse of Fleet, was a popular painting location for artists and the Sassoons and William Miles Johnston's family had summer huts there. The Gatehouse artist John Faed had originally recommended the landscape qualities of this part of the Galloway coast to E.A. Hornel.   Sassoon painted several oils and watercolours of the Carrick area from the 1930s. This work is an example of his interest in simple colour and form, based on rock formations observed against the background of Wigton Bay.   © The Artist's Estate