Santa Maria della Salute (Saint Mary of Health) is a Roman Catholic church in Venice, Italy. This watercolour was presented to Reading Museum as a gift from the RGA in memory of Eric W. Powell. 

Eric Walter Powell, (1886 – 1933) was born in Hornsey, London. An Eton and Cambridge education followed, where he rowed, along with his brother, in The Boat Race, became an Olympic bronze medallist in 1908 and winner of the Diamond Sculls, Henley Regatta in 1912. Eric taught French and German at Eton before the outbreak of the Great War which led to a distinguished military service. Eric went on to study art for two years in Paris, before returning to Eton as a House Master and Art teacher.

As a talented watercolourist Eric Powell exhibited at the Walker Galleries London, and had been a member of the RGA since its foundation in 1930, when suddenly they lost ‘one of their most valued members’. A keen and experienced climber, Eric and 3 friends, also Eton staff members, had been killed in a tragic Swiss alpine accident in 1933. He was 47. 

Cyril Alington, headmaster of Eton wrote of ‘…his wonderful talent as an artist… To watch the marvellous speed with which he transferred to paper the beauty which he saw with an unerring eye was a pleasure of which one never tired, and in later years he was developing an accuracy of detail and a variety of technique which seemed to hold the highest promise. Of what he did for drawing at Eton it is impossible to speak too highly.’

In tribute, Santa Maria della Salute, Venice was exhibited at The Reading Guild of Artists Fifth Annual Exhibition, November 1934, Art Gallery Reading, the catalogue stating ‘The Late Eric W. Powell.’