The Boat Yard

This wonderful 20th century watercolour painting depicts a small boat yard that is filled with fishing and pleasure vessels. It is possible that this work was created by Dring just after World War Two, when he travelled extensively around Britain and spent some time painting subjects in Portsmouth and the surrounding area.

William Dring

Dring was born with the forenames Dennis William, but was known colloquially as John. He was the brother of the artist James Dring. He married the painter Grace Elizabeth Rothwell, and their daughter Melissa was also an artist.

Dring studied under Henry Tonks at the Slade School of Fine Art, 1922-25, and emerged as a fine draughtsman, a sympathetic portrait painter (fond of using his family as subjects), and a deft watercolourist.

He won several prizes and scholarships at the Slade. He then taught until 1940 at Southampton School of Art and became an official war artist. The Imperial War Museum owns 64 of his portraits in pastel (mainly of naval personnel who received battle awards) and five of his elaborately constructed oil paintings.

He was elected an associate of the Royal Academy in 1944 when he showed a strong portrait of his daughter Melissa, and after the war he became a noted exhibitor at the Royal Academy, being elected RA in 1955.