In 1887 a rather impoverished Brangwyn visited Cornwall, sponsored by Frederick Mills, the elderly head of a firm of artist's colourmen in Soho, who had a reputation for supporting young artists. He travelled in steerage on the Waterford Packet, eventually disembarking at Falmouth. Brangwyn was instantly taken by Cornish waterfront life, writing: 'The whole harbour was filled with boats and men getting ready for the fishing; it was a sight that knocked me silly'.

Brangwyn’s earliest Cornish subjects, which concentrate on atmosphere and perspective, are quite discreetly toned but demonstrate a command of the en plein-air and square-brush approaches to painting. Along with George Clausen, Bramley was a primary exponent of the square-brush technique and ‘Shipping in open seas, 1889’ is a fine example. The painting also shows the influence of Henry Scott Tuke and Charles Napier Hemy, whom Brangwyn had met and admired as a lad on the Thames watching and copying the artist. These early Cornish works are quite rare but demonstrate that despite his youth and lack of any atelier training, Brangwyn was an accomplished en plein-air painter.

Brangwyn has the distinction of being the first Royal Academician to have enjoyed a full retrospective exhibition at the Royal Academy in his own lifetime. As such he is in such in rarefied company as John Nash, the titan of American Abstract Expressionism, Robert Motherwell, Frank Auebach and more recently, Anish Kapoor and Antony Gormley.