The "Georgia Bathers" Conundrum
Liz and I walked from Rosslyn, Virginia, across the Key Bridge to Georgetown in D.C. We went into the Four Seasons Hotel to use the restrooms and spent some time in the downstairs lobby looking at the paintings. The one that dominates by its size, 8 feet high by 16 feet long, is an apocalyptic scene of bathers on a beach under a dark cloud mass edged by eerie greenish sunlight. On the left, one figure is prone next to another standing vertically--on her head; in the center, two more, both their faces covered as they pull their shirts off, stand bolt upright; on the right, another figure pulls himself out of the inky water in a surprisingly deep tidal pool; prominent behind him are the cross beams of a toppled lifeguard platform.
Intrigued by this disturbing painting, we looked for the name of the artist, but the plaque was missing. In the lower, right-hand corner of the canvas, we discerned what seemed to be an angular "L I I S" or "L I I C" slightly emphasized against the other angular, hieroglyphic brushstrokes marking the beach sand.
Then it struck us that the bathers, along with the lifeguard stand, were arranged to form the letters L I I C or maybe L I I S. At that point we felt we had to inquire about the painting with the concierge.
The concierge, who graciously accompanied us back downstairs to look at our earth-shattering discovery, told us the artist was Graham Nickson. The painting, "Georgia Bathers," is one from his beach period, some 10 years when he painted only beaches and bathers (with scarcely a face depicted). We pointed out the brushstrokes in the corner that mimicked the figures' poses. If not the artist's name, then what could it mean? I noted that L, I, and C are all Roman numerals and it might signify a number or numbers (although LIIC is not syntactically correct), and there we left our mystery, if there ever was one to begin with.
Nickson's beaches are replete with faceless bathers in angular, geometric poses.
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