Charles Dixon, one of the most accomplished marine artists of his generation, produced a large body of work relating to shipping on the River Thames. Located at the lower reaches of the Thames, Gravesend was, for many British emigrants, one of their last views of home as their ship sailed down the river and out to the open sea. Dixon revelled in the bustling port scene, skilfully combining broad washes of colour with more tightly controlled techniques to create atmospheric details. Born at Goring in Oxfordshire, Dixon was the son of the artist Alfred Dixon. He began exhibiting with the Royal Academy from 1889 and was elected a member of the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolours in 1900. He was a keen yachtsman and lived on the Sussex coast at Itchenor. (Label date unknown)