SIR WILLIAM RUSSELL FLINT RA, PPRWS, (1880 - 1969)Sir William Russell Flint, one of the most celebrated British painters of the 20th century, has enjoyed almost constant popularity since the 1920s. In recent years, his prints, prolific both in the number of high quality subjects he completed and in how many of each image were printed, have fetched £1,000s at auction. His watercolours have constantly made more than £20,000 with 15 making more than £50,000 and with a top price of over £99,000. His work is genuinely competed for by many of the biggest UK dealers and also literally hundreds of private collectors. His oils are less common and actually less sought after, probably due to a heavier handling. He painted landscapes and figures very well, but it is his semi-naked women, often on or near beaches, that are the most popular subjects. His best work reflects a genuine greatness in watercolour technique although purists might rightly regret that he did not put this ability to more serious use. The Times' obituary paid tribute to his exceptional mastery of the watercolour medium: 'Sir William Russell Flint, RA, who has died at the age of 89, will be chiefly remembered as a watercolourist of remarkable technical skill. Though he painted also in oils and tempera and produced a considerable number of etchings and dry-points, his most characteristic works were watercolour landscapes and figure compositions, elaborately carried out and displaying great virtuosity, in the gradations of a wash and a special manner of enriching its effect by taking advantage of a grained surface paper'. He was the son of a commercial artist and apprenticed to a lithographer at the age of just 15. He also studied at the Royal Institution and then painted in Belgium and Holland. In 1900 he came to London and was at first employed to do medical drawings and later worked for the Illustrated London News. He turned increasingly to colour illustration and he was commissioned by the Medici Society to illustrate their luxury editions. He had illustrated watercolours at the Royal Academy from 1906 and soon achieved recognition for these and his oil paintings. After only exhibiting 3 oils at the RA he was elected an associate member. He was elected a full member in 1933. The war obviously interrupted Flint's career (during which he was a Captain in the RAF) and in his autobiography he wrote 'On getting out of uniform in February 1919 I found that so many people wanted my watercolours that I ceased to be an illustrator and became a painter. From 1919 to the present day I have lived by my brush, still in pursuit of my own undefinable ideal'. He painted extensively in Scotland, Spain, France, Italy and Switzerland. But it as a portrayer of feminine grace that he won universal acclaim; his picturesque gypsies, flamenco dancers, and languorous nude and half-draped beauties. He was perpetually fascinated by the female form, and it is remarkable that it was not until he was 73 that he met his favourite model, Cecilia Green. He also painted many famous actresses and dancers. Eric Newton wrote in The Guardian in 1962 that 'somewhere between the art of strip-tease and the art of painting and drawing lies a strange no-man's land. inhabited at the moment by specialists in pin-up girls - and Sir William Russell Flint. Other artists have inhabited it in the past - Boucher and Ingres and Etty among them. Greater artists than they have strolled through it, taking it in their stride - Titian and Rubens for example - but never making it their permanent home.