River at Night
, 1963
20.3 x 29.2 cm (h x w)
Gouache and PVA
Private Collection
© Estate of Alfred Cohen 2020
Painting is always concerned with effects of light; but only a few artists - De La Tour, Turner, Monet, among them - try to capture the light itself. Cohen was especially drawn to dawns and dusks; sunrises and sunsets, when the change in light is most extreme, and darkness and dazzle coexist. As in this painting and The River, both created soon after the Aspects of the Thames pictures, where he is a painter of sun and shadow, radiance and night-vision.
