Old Portsmouth - Watercolour by Kenneth Yockney

Kenneth Arlington Yockney (1881-1965)
Old Portsmouth

watercolour, heightened with bodycolour

Framed and glazed
Overall dimensions including frame: 48.2 x 65.9 cm

A view of Old Portsmouth from the harbour. Prominent to the left is the tower of Portsmouth Cathedral, and the Round Tower can be seen at the harbour mouth adjacent to Tower House (the home and studio of artist W.L. Wyllie until his death in 1931).

Kenneth Yockney was born in Port Royal, Jamaica, in 1881 and was the son of Algernon Yockney (1843-1912), Fleet Paymaster of the Royal Navy but a talented painter himself, and Mildred Morris Alington (1857-1955), daughter of the Rector of Stanhope, Lincs.

Kenneth was raised at the family home on the Isle of Wight at Woodcliff in the village of St Lawrence and studied art at the Slade School in London. He remained on the island for much of his life and recorded the many ships, of all sizes, in the surrounding waters. He was scornful of any publicity and never even signed his work, selling his paintings locally and through the Portsmouth art dealer Percy Beer. He died at St Mary’s Hospital, Newport in 1965 aged 83.