In 1904 the Manchester-born painter Wynford Dewhurst published a book claiming that the English invented Impressionism. It was seeing the paintings of Turner and Constable in the National Gallery while taking refuge in London from the Franco-Prussian War, he argued, that inspired the radical approaches of Claude Monet and Camille Pissarro.
His theory got short shrift from Messrs Monet and Pissarro, and it receives little support from Tate Britain’s exhibition “Impressionists in London: French Artists in Exile 1870-1904” (until 7 May).
