"Those who know the sea, and who also know Brangwyn’s pictures, will, providing they possess the powers of observation and the sense to apply it, come to the conclusion that Mr Brangwyn’s marine pictures — and some of his finest works
are of the sea and the sea shore — were the outcome of a
special knowledge"

James Stanley Little, ‘Mr Frank Brangwyn and His Art’
in ‘The Studio’, Volume 12

All the works from this period were executed with a vigour and confidence born from a certainty of knowledge, very few if any preparatory sketches exist for these early seascapes. In 1890 'Funeral at Sea' was exhibited at the Salon of the Royal Society of British Artists and then awarded a gold medal at the Paris Salon of 1891. In 1892 ‘The Convict Ship’ was shown at the Academy and then in Chicago where it was also awarded a gold medal.

As a base it was to Cornwall that Brangwyn turned, encouraged by his friend and painter with the Newlyn School, Albert East. Brangwyn absorbed the influences around him; French Impressionism and photography loosened and broadened his brush strokes, the colours and light of the Mediterranean and African coasts imbued his paintings with a new sense of colour. Consequently when the "Buccaneers’ was exhibited at the Grafton Gallery in 1893 the magazine ‘Truth’ reported it to be "more like a mosaic pavement than a picture".

Overseas Brangwyn was becoming a sensation, awards flooded in; he was soon a member of the Secessionists of Munich, an associate of the Societe Internationale de Peintures and of the Society de Beaux Arts of Paris.

M.Renan, French Art Critic reports that his pictures:
"..are remarkable; the eye is happy in front of the frames of this new comer; the eye opens and takes in a real joy. In France we shall be sincerely disappointed if Mr. Brangwyn does not keep the promises he is giving to art."

James Stanley Little, ‘Mr Frank Brangwyn and his Art’
in ‘The Studio’, Volume 12

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