Alfred Cohen: An American Artist in Europe - Between Figuration and Abstraction

Folkestone in Kent was one of a small number of places Cohen painted numerous times (others include Trouville, Le Crotoy, and Wells-next-the-Sea). The combination of the Downs, buildings, beach, people, flags, port, boat, sea and sky seemed endlessly fascinating. This version is perhaps the most successful - the most 'resolved', to use one of his key critical terms. As always, all the individual elements, when looked at closely, are abstracted: the facades of the sea-front hotels; the holidaymakers' heads; the angular (even in one case rectangular) clouds. But they all hang together to create a unique sense of space, atmosphere, and pleasure.