Charles Isaac GinnerCBEARA (4 March 1878 – 6 January 1952)[1] was a British painter of landscape and urban subjects. Born in the south of France at Cannes, of British parents, in 1910 he settled in London, where he was an associate of Spencer Gore and Harold Gilman and a key member of the Camden Town Group.
Early years and studies
Charles Isaac Ginner was born on 4 March 1878 in Cannes, the second son of Isaac Benjamin Ginner, a British medical doctor. He had a younger sister, Ruby (b. 1886; who became the dance teacher Ruby Dyer). He was educated in Cannes at the Institut Stanislas (Cannes) [fr].
At an early age, Ginner formed the intention of becoming a painter, but his parents disapproved. When he was sixteen, he suffered from typhoid and double pneumonia and travelled in a tramp steamer around the south Atlantic and the Mediterranean to convalesce; on returning to Cannes, he worked in an engineer's office, and in 1899, at the age of 21, moved to Paris to study architecture.
In 1904, his parents withdrew their opposition to his becoming a painter, and Ginner entered the Academie Vitti, where Henri Martin was teaching but where Ginner worked mostly under Paul Gervais, who disapproved of Ginner's use of bright colours. In 1905, Ginner moved to the Ecole des Beaux Arts, but in 1906, after Gervais had left, he returned to Vitti's, where his principal teacher was Hermenegildo Anglada Camarasa, who disapproved of Ginner's admiration for Vincent van Gogh.
In 1909, Ginner visited Buenos Aires, Argentina, where he held his first one-person show, which helped to introduce post-Impressionism to South America. His oil paintings showed the influence of Van Gogh, with their heavy impasto paint.
During World War I, in about 1916, Ginner was called up, serving firstly in the Royal Army Ordnance Corps, secondly in the Intelligence Corps, and lastly for the Canadian War Records, for which he made a painting of a powder-filling factory in Hereford.
In 1919, on Gilman's death, he published an appreciation of the artist in Art and Letters. In 1920 he became a member of the New English Art Club.
During World War II he was again an Official War Artist, and specialised in painting harbour scenes and bombed buildings in London. In 1942 he became an Associate of the Royal Academy, where he advocated the admission of younger artists.
Ginner painted buildings in an urban context, as in his painting Plymouth Pier from The Hoe. His watercolours are unmistakable, with meticulous detailing of trees and buildings.
The Tate Gallery in London and many other galleries hold his work. The National Portrait Gallery, London, has a typically precise self-portrait.
