Humphrey Ocean: The First of England
Please note: As part of the works on our exciting new capital project the Sammy Ofer Wing, the display of The First of England by Humphrey Ocean closed 14 December 2010.
Oil on canvas, 1999
The 'First of England' is a large-scale oil painting based on sketches and photographs taken during various ferry trips around Britain. Humphrey Ocean commented on the painting:
I was commissioned to paint a picture of modern maritime Britain and 'The First of England' is my response. I imagine a fair proportion of Britons have at one time or another been on a ferry, which is now an extension of the car as well as being a floating high street.
Oddly, while I was doing the painting I thought quite often about the First World War. The moustached archaic faces from the MCMXIV by Philip Larkin, describing a nation of innocents about to be shipped to France and eager to be going abroad, were brought to mind by my own 50-pence-each-way crowd returning to the white cliffs from a day trip, neither shattered nor shell-shocked nor dead, fortunately, but bearing a trolley of duty-free lager and three Toblerones for the price of two.
Humphrey Ocean
The title of the painting acknowledges Ford Madox Brown's famous Pre-Raphaelite painting 'The Last of England', 1855, which examines the social and national significance of sea travel at that time. It represents mass emigration to America that took place among the working classes during the 1850s. Ocean's painting comments on the significance of sea travel for the British today, and portrays an unromantic image of the relationship of Britons with their coastline.
In the tradition of post-war British pop art, Ocean has the uncanny ability to select an object that symbolises a particular experience or collective memory. The polystyrene cup sitting in the foreground captures the resignation of drinking stale coffee, whether on a ferry or at a roadside cafe. His painting of modern maritime Britain portrays an eclectic group of people sharing an everyday experience. The setting of the ferry arriving at Dover provides a feeling of movement but most of the people portrayed appear to be killing time, suitably unimpressed by leaving the British Isles over water because for them it is just another suburban, familiar experience. Oblivious to each other, these people behave with typical English nonchalance: no one looks at the figure lying on the bench, not caring if he is drunk, dead or just asleep. This scene on the English coastline gives the impression of individuals living seemingly isolated and disinterested existences.