LONDON.- In July 2022, James Hart Dyke (b.1966) climbed Mont Blanc via its rarely attempted north face in order to paint from the summit at sunset. As the leading mountain painter of his generation, Hart Dyke was accompanied by a retinue of guides, a cameraman and climbers as he ascended the Grands Mulets Route. This is a variation of the original one, l’ancien passage, taken by Jacques Balmat and Dr. Michel Paccard in 1786 on the historic first ascent of Mont Blanc. James Hart Dyke’s objective was to re-enact and emulate as closely as possible the conditions under which the legendary French painter of the Alps, Gabriel Loppé (1825-1913) made his pair of summit paintings at sunset in August 1873.

Thanks to a weather window and judicious planning, James was able to spend nearly two hours on the summit from 8.15 pm to past 10 pm and paint two pictures in situ. Although there was only a slight breeze, the temperature was between -15 and -20 Celsius.

Entitled James Hart Dyke MONT BLANC: The Summit Paintings, this exhibition at Cromwell Place shows around forty paintings and sketches from the adventure, including ones made during the climb itself.

It also unveils for the very first time in public, the all-important summit views. These pictures will hang alongside the two painted by Gabriel Loppé 150 years ago at exactly the same time of day.

The expedition was two years in the planning and conceived by William Mitchell of London-based John Mitchell Fine Paintings, a climber himself as well as a published authority on Gabriel Loppé and a scholar of painters working in the Alps.

Going on foot from the steps of Loppé’s former home in Chamonix and coming down four days later, William wanted to follow as closely as possible the route which Loppé took himself. Due to the dramatic reduction in the volume of the glaciers since the 19th-century, the route is now heavily crevassed which made for a very challenging ascent. As always in mountaineering, the descent was far more perilous, especially as the team had to undertake it at night. The team were guided by Christophe Profit, the legendary French guide and the only person in the world able to navigate this route.
James Hart Dyke says, “Standing on the summit of Mont Blanc at sunset was not only the culmination of years of work as a landscape artist but also the most emotionally charged and intensely concentrated period of time I have ever experienced while making a painting.”

William Mitchell added “The adventure will live with me forever. Watching James paint as the sun retreated, I felt the 150 years which separated Gabriel Loppé’s Mont Blanc sunset and our own disappear.”

John Mitchell Fine Paintings has been exhibiting James Hart Dyke’s paintings since 2002. His work is centred on landscape painting, from the domesticity of paintings of country houses to paintings generated from physically demanding expeditions over remote mountains. James has also undertaken a series of projects including accompanying the then Prince of Wales as the official artist on royal tours, as ‘artist in residence’ for The British Secret Intelligence Service, as an artist embedded with the British Forces in war zones, working for the producers of the James Bond films and as ‘artist in residence’ for Aston Martin. These projects required him to respond in many ways and have allowed him to experiment with more graphic forms of painting influenced by his studies as an architect at the Royal College of Art. His portraits have been shown at the National Portrait Gallery and at the Royal Society of Portrait Painters exhibitions.

Cromwell Place
Mont Blanc : The Summit Paintings
September 27th, 2023 - October 8th, 2023