A Still Afternoon,
Concarneau (1910)
Les Soeurs du Saint-Esprit,
Concarneau (1910-1912)
William John Leech (1881-1968)
William Leech was an Irish painter and illustrator whose works featured a wide range of outdoor and indoor subjects, including coastal and harbour scenes, landscapes, interiors, still life and portraits. Leech is noted as a strong colourist and was influenced by both the Impressionists (like Monet and Cezanne), and Post-Impressionists (like Matisse and Van Gogh).
Born in Dublin, William John Leech absorbed drawing and fine art painting at the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art before transferring to the Royal Hibernian Academy where he studied under the Irish Impressionist landscape painter Walter Osborne. In 1903, he left Dublin to paint in Paris and became inspired by the French countryside. Later that year, Leech visited the small Breton village of Concarneau (a latter day Barbizon landscape school) and painted there on and off until 1917. He became noted for his illustrations of its harbour. In fact, Concarneau had become something of an artist's colony, attracting among others Aloysius O'Kelly and John Lavery, both of whom became Leech's friends and influenced his paintings.
Curiously, not unlike Osborne's paintings, Leech's early French pictures were completed in darker colours. It took a little time for him to develop the bright rich colour palette which became his hallmark. However, as his plein-air painting developed, he rapidly developed an appreciation of sunlight and deep shadow.
