Cool valleys and southern hills, sandy beaches and quiet harbours, a curated edit with the warmth of the season in mind and the pleasure of a long, bright day.
Shop the CollectionSummer has always meant two things at once. There is the green kind, English lanes, a late hay harvest, afternoons that seem to go on forever. And there is the golden kind, a village in Provence, the umbrella pines of the Italian hills, the blue of a Mediterranean bay.
The most paintable season of the year, artists made use of long daylight hours and warm days for plein air work, coupled with growing outdoor recreation. Set side by side, their pictures make one long summer, the kind you remember from childhood, hot days, loud colours, and an ice cream was the most pressing thing on your mind.
The dappled shade of an English lane, a late hay harvest,
a hazy afternoon that seems to go on forever
These are pictures to be lived with, vibrant and full of life. There is fun to be had, bathers packed onto a bright beach, a market drowsing under blue umbrellas, sunflowers blazing on a windowsill. Painted across the twentieth century, from Cornwall to the Côte d’Azur, these are pictures made for the love of the light.
Hung together, they do what the best summer pictures always do: hold a little of the season’s warmth, ready to be let out again on a grey day in January.
