August Blue
August Blue is an oil-on-canvas painting by British artist Henry Scott Tuke. It depicts four youths in and around a boat, bathing in the sea. Tuke started the painting in 1893, probably en plein air on a boat in the harbour at Falmouth, Cornwall. The finished painting was exhibited at the Royal Academy summer exhibition in 1894, and immediately purchased for the Tate Gallery, where it remains to this day. It has a light Impressionistic style, possibly influenced by his travels to Italy, Corfu and Albania in 1892. Background Tuke was born in York in 1858, but his family moved to Falmouth the following year, where it was hoped the milder climate would ameliorate the tuberculosis suffered by his father, the doctor Daniel Hack Tuke. He showed early talent for art, and studied at the Slade School of Art in London in 1874–79 and in Paris from 1881–83, and also travelled to Italy. He returned to Cornwall to live in Falmouth 1883, and is usually identified as a member of the Newlyn school. Many of his works involve boys or young men, often in or beside the sea, and usually naked, although generally in a position where their genitals are