In her French beach resort paintings such as Sur la plage (On the sands), Dinard, Ethel Carrick, like the impressionists before her, created her own modern idylls, while envisaging the changing dynamics brought by tourism. These works are infused with a poetic, dream-like quality, yet retain a feeling for modern life, with women active in the world – often engaged in caring for children. In their painterly expression, striped patterns of dresses combined with red and white beach tents create a visual dynamic. The ubiquitous French red-and-white striped beach tents became a leitmotif for Carrick, setting up alternating tempos within individual paintings, and from one work to the next.
Singular tents and multiples are like notes on a keyboard. Musical analogies recur in the way that Carrick would sometimes riff on almost identical compositions, subtly altering the mood by softening or deepening colour and adding or subtracting structures, like an orchestral interplay of sounds.
By the time Carrick painted works like Sur la plage (On the sands), Dinard she had become a ‘societaire’ (full member) of the avant-garde Salon d’Automne and was appointed to the Salon jury, a rare honour for a woman. Her husband Emanuel Phillips Fox had written to his friend Hans Heysen: ‘There is a lot of talk here about the post impressionists—I am sure you would not like them, nor could you feel any interest in the Autumn Salon, which claims to be the coming art—God help it, if it turns out to be so.’ He also added a more conciliatory note: ‘My wife works away and is doing some very interesting & personal stuff—She is societaire of [the] Autumn Salon & is very keen on the modern outlook.’
