Originally posted by FISHY1118
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Sickert used to holiday in Europe, mainly France, in August.
The first time he holidayed in Dieppe was in 1879.
There is a photograph of him bathing there in August 1920.
According to Wendy Baron, his biographer, Sickert
arrived in Dieppe on 1 August 1887
was in Dieppe in early August 1888
in August 1889, he met Degas and Gauguin in Paris
was in Dieppe from August to October 1890
was in Dieppe in August 1894.
Sickert used the evocative title Londra Benedetta for several prints and drawings, but it was especially apposite in the case of this unusual and complex interior. He explained the subject in a letter to the American painter Nan Hudson, written in late July or August 1907 just before he left for his annual summer visit to Dieppe...
(Bonhams - Walter Richard Sickert A.R.A. (British, 1860-1942) )
But what of the overriding question, much more important than her portrait of Sickert as a chilling psychopath? Where exactly was he when the six murders took place between 7 August and 9 November 1888? ... there is a drawing [by Sicker] dated 4 August made at a Hammersmith music- hall. No further London drawings occur until 4 October. It has long been known that Sickert was abroad that summer, following his annual custom of being in or near Dieppe, a town that the Sickert family knew well and where they had many friends. The second murder (31 August, Mary Ann Nichols) and the third (8 September, Annie Chapman) took place when Sickert, his mother and his brother Bernhard were at St ValZry-en-Caux along the coast west of Dieppe. On 6 September Mrs Sickert wrote to a friend in England from St ValZry saying that her sons Walter and Bernhard were there swimming and painting (a letter unknown to Cornwell). At some point (probably August) Sickert wrote from St ValZry to the French painter Jacques-Emile Blanche telling him he had come to 'this nice little place' for a rest.
According to Cornwell this is the only evidence she could find that Sickert was abroad during these two months. But on 17 September Blanche wrote to his father that he had visited Walter and his family at St ValZry on the day before (16 September).
On 21 September Sickert's wife Ellen, in London, wrote to her brother-in-law that Sickert was in France for some weeks with 'his people'.
On 30 September the Ripper caused a terrible sensation when the bodies of Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes were found, murdered within hours of each other. A day or two later Sickert painted (or finished) 'The October Sun' showing a shop-front in St ValZry. By the 4 October he was back in London. A postscript to this holiday abroad occurs in the diary of Daniel HalZvy, a friend of Degas and the Sickerts, who wrote on 28 October, 'This summer Sickert came to see Mama' (almost certainly visiting her in Paris).
(Richard Shone, Verdict as open as ever, Spectator, 09 November 2002)
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