Artist of the month for September 2018 - W. Stewart UK watercolorist

This accomplished UK marine artist was active in the latter part of the 19th and early part of the 20th centuries and painted under the pseudonyms W. Stewart, J. Hill and F. Grayson and perhaps others. Works are sometimes signed with a monogram, "WS", "JH", etc. It is fairly certain that he/she was situated in southeast England as many works by this artist feature "SM" on the sails of the ships in their paintings, a designation for Shoreham. This artist also painted Venice harbor scenes and very rarely a coastal scene. Several researchers have concluded that this artist was actually Frederick James Aldridge 1850-1933, well known British watercolorist, because their works are so similar. It may be that Aldridge painted under these pseudonyms to protect the sale value of works that he painted under his real name. Others have speculated this artist was a student of Aldridge, though that is less likely as both artists were active at roughly the same time. This artist was so prolific that their works are still commonly found for reasonable prices at auction on sites like ebay, Etsy or other online and brick and mortar auction houses. Work by this artist is sometimes misrepresented as that of Scottish artist William Stewart 1823-1906, but that is most definitely not correct. I have spent several years in researching this artist in an attempt to prove their identity but with little success. I tend to agree that this is the work of FJA. All of the works shown are from my personal collection.

http://kevindaniel.x10.mx/wstewart.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_James_Aldridge