"Sandy HOOK (1879 -1960 ) Official painter of the Navy - Antwerp - View Of The Docks."
Gouache signed at the bottom right.
On the back: signed and titled "Canal Dock (Antwerp)".
Size: 52 x 65 cm,
with frame 60 x 74 cm
The scene takes place on the docks in the port of Antwerp  
Several liners and boats of different sizes are represented.
An original and modern shot with a foreground plunging us on the deck of a barge where a sailor, the only human figure, is captured in full action.
As if enveloped in a veil of mist, the atmosphere is diffuse and cold. The colors are muted, in a gradient of pastellized colors,
only the bright orange strip of the hull of the barge in the foreground warms the scene.
The atmosphere is industrial and industrious.
Sandy Hook, whose real name is George Taboureau, is a French painter, poster artist and illustrator specialized in representations of maritime scenes. He was appointed official painter of the navy in 1917.
A true enthusiast, he was only eleven years old when he made his first drawings of boats. This is followed by a production cravings that will not leave him until his death.
Sandy-Hook has worked for the Maritime Couriers, the Combined Shippers, the Western Naval Company, the General Transatlantic Company and for many other companies: Fraissinet, Compagnie mixte, Paquet, Worms, Charles Le Borgne and many shipyards. He has produced many posters for transatlantic companies. Watercolors are known to him and represent the Aramis, the Aviator Roland Garros, the Champollion, all three liners of the Maritime Messengers or even the Basque, Mosul, City of La Ciotat, Karnak, , and