Terrick John Williams was one of the most admired British painters of light and atmosphere in the early twentieth century. Born in Liverpool and trained in Antwerp and Paris, he later divided his life between London and St Ives, developing a reputation for luminous landscapes, harbour scenes, and river views painted in oil, pastel, and watercolour. His refined handling of tonal harmonies and his sensitivity to transient effects of light reveal both an Impressionist influence and the disciplined realism of his early academic training.

Although Williams first lived in Paris during his student years, he continued to return to Parisian subjects throughout his career. The Seine, in particular, offered him the shifting colours, reflections and atmospheric conditions that became central to his mature style. In Evening on the Seine, Paris, he captures the river at dusk, the façades of seventeenth-century buildings dissolving gently into evening light and mirrored in the water below.

Williams exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy from 1891, was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy in 1924 and became a Royal Academician in 1933.