Montague Dawson was born in Chiswick in 1895. His grandfather, Henry, had been a successful landscape artist and those artistic talents flowed through to his grandson.

As a boy, Dawson grew up on Southampton Water spending his formative years messing about in boats. He had no formal artistic training although in his early twenties he regularly visited and was much influenced by the well established marine artist Charles Napier Hemy R.A.

As well as being a naturally talented artist, he was also very commercial. From a very early age he was able to earn good money for his work. However , after the age of thirty, he delegated the commercial side of his life to the dealers Frost and Read who became his world-wide agents. They were so successful at marketing his paintings that, not only was he able to afford to live in a fine house on the South Coast, but also, he was able to drive around in his own Rolls Royce.

Having spent his early years working as an illustrator and a poster artist in London, he enrolled in The Navy during the First World War. During this time, his work was accepted by The Sphere ,an up-market news magazine similar to The Illustrated London News. In 1918 he was present at the surrender and scuttling of the German Grand Fleet at Scapa Flow . His illustrations of this event took up a complete issue of The Sphere magazine.

Dawson was extremely industrious often working seven days a week. His fame grew to such an extent that his wife and daughter spent much of their time shielding him from an admiring public. He would take upto three weeks to complete one picture and would not start a new one until the current one was finished.

Although he did produce a few portraits and landscapes. he is most famous for his paintings of deep-sea sailing ships in a strong breeze and on the high seas. He was one of the finest marine artists of the Twentieth Century. His work is in Art Galleries all over the World and, in its time was collected by,amongst others, the British Royal Family as well as Presidents Dwight Eisenhower and Lyndon Johnson.