Catherine Dawson Giles

(London 1878-1955)

A French Town Square, c.1920s   *SOLD*

watercolour and pencil on paper

32 x 43.5 cm.

in a period frame

Provenance

From the artist to her godson, the actor Quentin ‘John’ Stevenson (1935-2025); by whom sold to
Private collection UK, until 2026.

Catherine Dawson Giles was a close friend of the artist Jessica Dismorr (1885-1939), and very likely her life-partner before Dismorr committed suicide in 1939. The pair met at the Etaples art colony in 1904, where both artists trained under Max Bohm (1868-1923). Dismorr lived for several years at the Dawson Giles family home in London, and also had a studio at Catherine’s cottage in Alfriston in Sussex. Their relationship was evidently much intertwined. After the First World War the pair travelled together in Europe in the 1920s, spending significant time in Paris and the Alpes-Maritimes, where it’s likely the present scene was painted en plein air. Inevitably, they would paint the same scenes alongside one another, in a very similar, delicate yet modernist style. The Fine Art Society held a joint exhibition of their work in 2000, with a great many pieces from the collection of Dawson Giles’ godson - the actor John Stevenson - from whose collection this watercolour once came.