The Sluice Gates at the Old Mill, Standon, Hertfordshire, 1939
Charles Ginner was born in Cannes in the south of France in 1878 and lived in Paris from the age of twenty-one. Ginner grew up knowing that he wanted to be an artist, yet faced opposition from his parents. After three years working in an architect’s office in Paris, he eventually enrolled at the Académe Vitti in Paris (1904-1908) and at the Ecole des Beaux Arts (1905) where he developed his distinctive style of applying thick paint in small brushstrokes which he continued with throughout his lifetime.
Ginner contributed to his first London exhibition with the Allied Artist’s Association in 1908. After a trip to Argentina in 1909 during which he staged his first solo exhibition, Ginner moved to London where he began attending gatherings at Walter Richard Sickert’s studio, 19 Fitzroy Street. One of sixteen members of the Camden Town Group formed in 1911, Ginner exhibited in their three exhibitions held at the Carfax Gallery in Bury Street, St James, alongside the likes of Sickert, Harold Gilman, William Ratcliffe, and Robert Polhill Bevan, and became close friends with Gilman and Spencer Gore. The Camden Town Group favoured everyday subjects from London life, and anti-naturalistic colouring to advance Modernism in Britain, resulting, however briefly, in a new and different style of painting in London.
Ginner’s knowledge of Parisian theory and practice was unmatched within his contemporaries and resulted in a style which was greatly inspired by French artists, particularly the Post-Impressionists and the work of Vincent van Gogh.
Ginner is best remembered for his cityscapes and landscapes in which he uses small spots of meticulously applied colour to create one overpowering image. Often sketching and painting watercolours outdoors, Ginner had a deep understanding of the landscape surrounding him. His works demonstrate his intense focus and precise mark-making which he combined with an inherent knowledge of hue and pigment.