The Richard Martin Gallery have thirty years experience of buying and selling works by Martin Snape.

Please do contact us for an appraisal should you have a item by Snape that you are considering selling.

Martin Snape (1852-1930)

Martin Snape, Gosport’s most celebrated artist, was born at Spring Garden Cottage on 31 December 1852 and educated at Dr. Burney’s Naval Academy in Clarence Square.

The son of Alfred C. Snape, himself a painter of considerable merit, Martin was one of five brothers and a sister. They all had artistic ability but Martin and his younger brother William were particularly gifted. William died in 1904 at just 42 years.

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To quote a fellow artist and friend of Martin and William Snape, F.C. Davidson, who drew the above portrait of Snape in 1928 when he was 75 years old: “Martin Snape’s recording of the ever changing scene in and around Portsmouth Harbour from sunrise to sunset, at low and high water, the stench of the mud and vibrating greens, those rusty hulks against a background of yachts and the might of the Navy, has never been so vividly portrayed by an other artist of the time.”

He was a technically skilled artist and the detail and accuracy of his local scenes has left us with an enduring record of a landscape now much changed. Snape had a keen interest in botany and his knowledge of field craft, folklore and the flora and fauna of Hampshire were unsurpassed.

Although he tended to shrink from publicity he took a full-part in the life of the community being the vice-chairman of the library committee, a governor of the local technical school and a founder member of the Rotary Club of Gosport.

Martin Snape married late in life, the widow of a naval officer, and he died on the 24 November 1903 at the age of 77. He is buried in the churchyard at Rowner.

Recognised as one of Gosport’s great characters, he made a unique contribution to the cultural life of his home town.

Richard Martin Gallery is just 400 meters away from Martin and William Snapes’ birthplace, home and studio. Since the foundation of our gallery nearly a quarter of a century ago, many hundreds of works by the Martin and William Snape have passed through our hands. Indeed, Richard and Elaine Martin are the proud possessors of a fine personal collection of works by both artists. Our knowledge of the artists is such that Richard regularly gives lectures on their lives and is constantly asked to look at and appraise works by the Snapes.