PDF version - The Cooley Gallery

Transcription

PDF version - The Cooley Gallery
Fine American Paintings
THE COOLEY GALLERY
25 Lyme Street, Old Lyme, CT 06371
(860) 434-8807 • [email protected]
www.cooleygallery.com
The present moment is a remarkable time to be collecting. As ever, selectivity and mindfulness need
to rule, but both economically and psychologically, fine American art is a compelling focus for these
uncertain times.
The last few months have brought us wonderful opportunities to expand our inventory and we are
proud to present this new catalogue. The paintings offer especially good quality at attractive price levels.
The truth is in the details and I invite you to examine these works carefully. There are passages of genius
in each one. Beauty, intrigue, whimsy, abstraction – it’s all here.
The delight is in the art itself, but there are fascinating stories behind all of these painters. I recommend
to you the essays by Joseph Newman, our gallery director, and Caitlin Murphy, our new gallery
associate. Caitlin hails from the art history program at Fairfield University and we are excited to have
her join us. I would also like to thank Lorre Broom, our business manager, for all her varied and
essential efforts, and Nancy Pinney, our website manager, who deserves much credit for the tremendous
photography.
The coming months are certain to bring uncertainty. But as always, art endures. We encourage you to
enjoy the best of American painting along with us.
Sincerely,
Jeffrey W. Cooley
ii
William Gerrit Van Zandt (19th–20th century)
Gentleman’s Ride, Outside Albany, 1858
signed “Van Zandt” and dated lower right
oil on canvas
39" x 55 ½"
Wealth in Antebellum America
T
he scale, ambitiousness, and painterly skill of
Gentleman’s Ride, Outside Albany combine to make
it Van Zandt’s masterpiece. Primarily known for his
near-folk horse portraits and carriage profiles, Van Zandt
here offers the viewer several pictures in one—a finely
executed portrait of two horses, folk portraits of two men,
a comment on social conditions in the pre-Civil War
era, and a Hudson River School landscape of admirable
quality. Little is known about the artist other than he was
descended from an established Albany family of Dutch
ancestry and that his father, Thomas Kirby Van Zandt
(1814-1886), also painted horse and carriage pictures.
Comprehensively, Gentleman’s Ride, Outside Albany
presents a view of the industrious American character.
The nation’s manufacturing infrastructure is implied
by the carriage, the workmanship of the reins and
harnesses, and the fine clothing worn by the gentleman
and his driver. Both characters comport themselves
with a brand of dignity that suggests stable wealth. And
in the background, the ships on river and the farmer
herding his stock hint at the mercantile and agrarian
antecedents to America’s manufacturing power. The
Civil War would presently interrupt the country’s
peacetime march toward the industrial age, but for the
moment, Van Zandt has captured on a grand scale the
ambitiousness of the American disposition.
—JFN
4
Provenance
From a private Connecticut collection to the gallery.
Presentation Notes
In a 6” period gilt cove frame with ornate floral detail
and beaded liner. Expertly cleaned, with some minor
in-painting to old stretcher bar marks.
5
John Williamson (1826–1885)
Cave of the Winds, 1859
signed lower right
signed again, titled and dated verso
oil on canvas
13¼" x 111 8 "
Falling Water
B
orn outside Glasgow, Scotland, John Williamson
emigrated to Brooklyn and lived there during
the peak of the representational style known later as
the Hudson River School. Williamson’s landscapes
of New York and New England are most often direct
and pleasing interpretations of established views in the
Adirondacks, Lake George, the Berkshires, the Catskills,
and the Connecticut countryside. On occasion, the artist
could be compositionally dramatic, as evidenced by
Cave of the Winds. Showing the gushing force of Niagara’s
Bridal Veil Falls in profile, Williamson has created a
picture full of movement and with a translucent effect
that betrays his genius. A gathering of small, delicate
branches jutting from a rocky outcropping stands in
sharp relief to the violent water, tempering the mood
of the painting. The subject itself no longer exists as
painted here. The original cave tucked behind the falls
was blocked by a rock collapse in 1920 and was later
destroyed by a second collapse in 1954.
Williamson first exhibited at the National Academy
of Design in 1859, the same year as he painted Cave
of the Winds, and was made an associate two years
later.1 His antebellum pictures are extremely rare
and it appears the Civil War dramatically suppressed
his output. The majority of his post-war paintings
date to the 1870s and tend to reflect an emphasis on
pastoral harmony. Cave of the Winds is thus an early
and vigorous effort by the artist. Williamson died in
Glenwood-on-the-Hudson in 1885.
–JFN
1C
onnecticut Masters: The Fine Arts and Antiques Collection of the Hartford Steam Boiler Inspection and Insurance Company (New Haven: Eastern
Press, 1991), 199.
6
Provenance
From the trade to the gallery.
Presentation Notes
In a 4" period American Barbizon gilt frame with
rich corner detail and arched liner. Expertly cleaned.
7
Albert Fitch Bellows (1829–1883)
Picnic by the Brook, circa 1865
signed lower right
oil on canvas
10" x 18"
A Pastoral Sojourn
A
lbert Fitch Bellows was born to an old New
England family in 1829 and grew up in Milford,
Massachusetts. After serving as principal of the New
England School of Design, Bellows went abroad to the
Royal Academy in Antwerp to study genre painting.
Upon his return to New York in 1859, Bellows was
made an associate of the National Academy of Design
and an Academician in 1861.
Bellows developed a keen interest in watercolors
and was a founder of the American Society of Painters in
Watercolor, which published his famous treatise, Water
Color Painting: Some Facts and Authorities in Relation to its
Durability. He also went abroad to England to expose
himself to leading watercolor talents and in Antwerp
was admitted as an honorary member of the Royal
Belgian Society of Painters in Water Color. After the
artist returned from Europe, many of his works were
burnt in a fire that destroyed his Boston studio in 1872.
He then moved his studio to New York and continued
to exhibit at the National Academy, Brooklyn Art
Association, Boston Art Club, Boston Athenaeum, and
the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. His works
are now held in the collections of Brooklyn Museum of
Art, Baltimore Museum of Art, Birmingham Museum
of Art, Cleveland Museum of Art, National Academy of
Design, and the New York Historical Society.
Frederick Baekeland refers favorably to Bellows’
landscapes:
Will He Reach It?
signed lower left
oil on panel with arched top
8 ½" x 6 ¼"
From the mid-1860’s, Bellows concentrated on
landscapes rather than genre paintings with children
that had previously dominated his output. His
landscapes, however, typically contain figures and
often have genre features. Like all of his work, they
show high finish, concern for detail, and a sound
instinct for composition. They are generally quiet,
harmonious scenes of rural life . . .1
1 Baekeland, Frederick, Images of America: The Painter’s Eye (The Birmingham Museum of Art, 1991) 48.
8
Picnic by the Brook belongs to this group of lush, pastoral
landscapes. At the composition’s center is a charming
picnic party between two young women at the edge of
the stream. The animation brought by the well-articulated
figures, bright atmosphere, and luxuriant vegetation
provide an open, idyllic view of the countryside.
Provenance
From the trade to the gallery.
Presentation Notes
In a 4" period fluted cove gilt frame. Expertly
cleaned and lined.
—CRM/JFN
9
Charles Herbert Moore (1840–1940)
View Near Dorset, Vermont, circa 1865
unsigned
oil on canvas
16" x 24"
A Pre-Raphaelite in Vermont
T
he mountain ranges and landscapes of northern
New England and upstate New York became
increasingly attractive to landscape painters from New
York City during the nineteenth century, especially
during the summer and autumn months.1 As early as
1859, Charles Herbert Moore, a trained draftsman and
established artist from the city, began summering in
Catskill, New York and was a permanent resident by
1861. He spent the next decade painting the majestic
valleys and rolling hills of New York, New Hampshire,
and Vermont.
View Near Dorset, Vermont presents an early
example of Moore’s interest in the Pre-Raphaelite
technique, a mode which became more prominent
in his work over the course of his career. This style
is especially visible in the minute specificity of the
vegetation in the foreground. Moore’s fidelity to nature
is consistent throughout the composition in the use of
color and sense of space. The detailing in the foreground
creates a sense of tangible proximity for the viewer,
while the atmospheric perspective and hazy beauty
of the panoramic scenery extends in every possible
direction beyond the confines of the frame.
In 1871, Moore left his professional career to
become an instructor of watercolor and drawing at
Harvard University. He departed for Europe for the
first time in 1876, and made a number of return trips,
spending a significant amount of time in Italy and
France. He pursued his interest in the Pre-Raphaelite
movement and medieval architecture at Harvard, and
moved to England following his retirement in 1909.
—CRM
1 William Gerdts, Art Across America, vol. 1 (New York: Abbeville, 1990), 160.
10
Provenance
From a private collection in Connecticut to the
gallery.
Presentation Notes
In a 3” fluted cove reproduction gilt frame with leaf
and berry surround.
11
James Brade Sword (1839–1915)
New England Scenery, 1871
signed “J.B. Sword” and dated lower left
oil on canvas
30" x 50"
Elements of Our Character
O
f all the artists who would contribute to the
development of the Hudson River School style,
James Brade Sword had by comparison an unusual
route toward becoming an artist. Born in Philadelphia
in 1839, Sword was raised in Macao before returning
to the United States as a young boy. He abandoned
high school to become a civil engineer on several urban
improvement projects in the Philadelphia area and in
Louisiana. At age twenty-two, motivated by his natural
ability as a draftsman, he enrolled at the Pennsylvania
Academy of Fine Art.1
Like his predecessors in the landscape tradition,
Sword traveled north into upstate New York, to the
shores of Lake George, and across into Vermont, New
Hampshire, and Maine. In New England Scenery, Sword
fills his canvas with the characteristics that made the
region so popular with his colleagues—high mountains,
a lush valley, an ambling waterway, autumnal trees, a
resplendent sky, and two figures that suggest the pastoral
innocence of the local character. The narrow-gauge train
puffing along the leftmost hillside is perhaps a personal
touch inspired by his civil engineering background.
Sword, who made his living painting portraits,
stayed current with art trends and was known to
occasionally emulate the work of past artists such as
Henry Inman (1801-1846).2 He experimented with
genre scenes and animal portraits, but he is at his
strongest here, answering the challenge of a complex
and expansive landscape.
—JFN
1 www.askart.com
2 William H. Gerdts, “Henry Inman: Genre Painter” in American Art Journal, vol. 9, no. 1 (May, 1977), 42.
12
Provenance
From the trade to the gallery.
Presentation Notes
In a 5" reproduction fluted cove gilt frame with leaf
and berry surround.
13
Hendrik-Dirk Kruseman Van Elten (1829–1904)
Field Point, Greenwich, Connecticut, circa 1875
signed “K. Van Elten” lower right and
inscribed with title on stretcher
oil on canvas
15 ½" x 23"
The Dutchman in America
H
endrik-Dirk Kruseman Van Elten was already
an established landscapist in his native Holland
before debuting on the American scene at the National
Academy of Design in 1866. Having helped organize
at least one exhibition among European artists eager
to enter the American market, Van Elten parlayed his
influence into a successful career from the moment he
arrived in New York.1 He rented a studio in the famed
10th Street Studio Building for thirty-one years, during
which time he continued to exhibit extensively at the
National Academy and Pennsylvania Academy of Fine
Art. He gradually shed his identity as a European artist
come to market foreign pictures to Americans in favor of
being identified as a wholly American artist preoccupied
by the varied splendors of the northeast.2
Working in the 10th Street Studio Building gave
Van Elten access to native-born artists more familiar
with the regional landscape and he counted among
his friends Jervis McEntee (1828-1891) and James D.
Smillie (1833-1909). Van Elten followed his colleagues
into upstate New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania,
the Litchfield Hills, and along the Long Island Sound
shoreline. His detailed landscapes frequently carried
much of the Pre-Raphaelite tradition and he was
celebrated specifically for his leaf detail, as evidenced in
the present picture. Field Point, Greenwich, Connecticut
demonstrates Van Elten’s dedication to realism, his
mastery of varied geological forms, and his ability to
create perspective, even with less than half the canvas
remaining open to him. The viewer understands that
Van Elten’s primary objective was to offer a visual
respite; even so, one of the young fishermen stands and
gestures toward the bedlam of New York City.
Though he complained to McEntee that sales
were difficult in America and suffered a failed return to
Holland in 1873, Van Elten participated in two of the
great American exhibitions of the late 19th century—the
1876 Universal Exhibition in Philadelphia and the 1893
Colombian Exposition in Chicago.3 He was a member
of the Royal Academies in Amsterdam and Rotterdam
and was also a member of the American Society of
Painters in Water Colors. In addition to his oil paintings,
he achieved great fame as an etcher. After his death
in 1904, the American Art Guild in New York held a
landmark auction of his work in 1905.
—JFN
1 Dieuwetje Dekkers, “‘Where Are the Dutchmen?’ Promoting The Hague School in America, 1875-1900” in Simiolus: Netherlands Quarterly for
the History of Art, vol. 24, no. 1 (1996), 56.
2 Robert Michael Austin, Artists of the Litchfield Hills (Waterbury: Mattatuck Museum, 2003), 17.
3 Jervis McEntee, “Jervis McEntee’s Diary” in Archives of American Art Journal, vol. 8, no. 3/4 (1968), 14.
14
Provenance
From the trade to the gallery.
Presentation Notes
In a 4" reproduction fluted cove gilt frame with leaf
and berry surround.
15
Richard William Hubbard (1816–1888)
Picnic in the Meadows, 1880
signed “R. W. Hubbard” and dated lower left
oil on canvas
40" x 29"
An American Respite
A
s the country suffered from lingering physical and
sociological damage resulting from the Civil War,
paintings like Picnic in the Meadows by Richard William
Hubbard reminded Americans of the country’s inherent
greatness. Hubbard traveled extensively along the Hudson
River Valley, in Vermont, and in Connecticut, in search of
humble landscapes to use as the subject of his paintings.
Picnic in the Meadows showcases some of the
preeminent characteristics of a typical Hudson River
School landscape: a meticulous, factual representation
of scenery, the acute observation of vegetation and
rocks, and the careful rendering of light to achieve
a harmonious and romantic composition. Hubbard
frequently worked on a smaller scale, though here he
is able to convey a vivid appreciation for color, space,
and tone in extraordinary detail, despite the canvas’
ambitious size.1
Hubbard moved to New York after graduation from
Yale in 1837 and enrolled in the National Academy’s
antiques class. After briefly studying with Samuel B.
Morse (1791-1872), he left to study abroad in 1980. He
spent most of the next decade in England and France,
and moved to New York City upon his return to the
United States. He remained in the city for the rest of his
life, and was actively involved in the National Academy
as an exhibitor and councilman, the Artist Fund’s Society
as a founding member, and the Brooklyn Art Association
as the president from 1873 to 1882.
—CRM
1 John Driscoll, All That is Glorious Around Us: Paintings from the Hudson River School (Ithaca: Cornell University, 1997), 94.
16
Provenance
From a private New York collection to the gallery.
Presentation notes
In a 5" period reproduction fluted cove gilt frame
with leaf and berry surround. Expertly cleaned.
17
Eastman Johnson (1824–1906)
To Your Health, Sir, circa 1875
signed “Johnson” lower left
oil on canvas
10½" x 8 ½"
A Nantucket Legend
B
orn in Lovell, Maine, Eastman Johnson began his art
training in a Boston lithography shop in 1840. He
moved back to Maine two years later and concentrated
on portraiture, both in charcoal and pencil. He worked
and studied in numerous American locales such as
Washington, DC, Cincinnati, and Nantucket, as well
as in Europe with Thomas Couture (1815-1879) in
Paris and Emanuel Leutze (1816-1868) in Dusseldorf.
It was in Amsterdam that Johnson studied the work of
17th century Dutch and Flemish masters Rembrandt
Harmenszoon Van Rijn (1606-1669) and Anthony
Van Dyck (1599-1641). Their paintings inspired him
to develop a freer handling of paint, a richer palette,
and a penchant for picturesque subjects. He returned
permanently to the United States in 1858.
Johnson’s subject matter included portraits
of the wealthy and influential, from John Quincy
Adams, to literary figures, to portraits of unnamed
individuals, but he is best known for his genre work.
He typically utilized old master techniques, many of
which were Rembrandtian, to depict contemporary
and quintessentially American subjects. For example,
To Your Health, Sir presents a tight and fairly detailed
interior view, faint sunlight from an unseen window as
the light source, and a dark tonality. The older man with
the top hat and raised glass in the painting is portrayed
in strict profile, as though the viewer were seated at the
bar beside him witnessing his heartfelt toast.
Nantucket, Massachusetts, to which Johnson took
annual sojourns after 1870, is most likely the locale
which inspired To Your Health, Sir. It was there that
Johnson found inspiration for a set of portraits that were
evocative of a lingering and slowly declining past; his
muses became the aging male population on the island.
“In those compelling works he recorded the physical
decline and psychological isolation that paralleled the
waning of a regional way of life”.1 Nantucket had since
become “a little town whose ships have sailed away to
other ports” marking the end of a golden era for the
island.2 Johnson found of interest the insular inhabitants
of the New England seacoast, among them Captain
Nathan H. Manter, one of the artist’s earliest studies of
local sea captains. Identified by his “respectable old silk
high hat” and beard, the man who served as the pilot of
the ferry Island Home before his retirement in 1891 is
the most conceivable sitter for To Your Health, Sir and
can be identified in a number of other paintings from
Johnson’s time on Nantucket.3
To Your Health, Sir is an example of a small study
which Johnson intended to turn into a larger masterpiece
once a commission was secured. Records show a 30½"
x 23½" painting from 1880 by Johnson entitled A Study
for A Glass with the Squire, which portrays two older
gentlemen standing adjacent to a sideboard, facing each
1 Teresa A. Carbone, “Eastman Johnson’s Portrait of Aging New England,” in Magazine Antiques (November 1999), 700.
2 “Nantucket,” in Atlantic Monthly, vol. 17, no. 101 (March 1866), 297.
3 William Walton, “Eastman Johnson, painter,” in Scribner’s Magazine, vol. 40, no. 3 (September 1906), 271.
18
other with their glasses raised. On top of the sideboard
is an open wooden cellaret, whose top rests against the
wall and exposes a peacock-blue lining and decanters.
The man on the left shares a number of physical traits
with the subject of To Your Health, Sir including the tall
hat and winter coat. Both men stand in profile and raise
their glass with their right hands, while their left hand
rests on the surface of the sideboard. The smaller study
shows a glimpse of the wooden cellaret that appears in
full detail in the larger painting.
Johnson played a lively role in the New York Art
milieu, holding memberships at the Century Association
and the Union League Club and exhibiting with the Society
of American Artists. He was also one of the founders of
the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1870 and served as a
trustee until 1871. He died in New York in 1906.
—CRM
Provenance
From a private collection in New Jersey to the
gallery.
Presentation Notes
In its original 4" Barbizon gilt frame. Expertly
cleaned.
19
Edward Willis Redfield (1869–1965)
A Winter’s Eve, circa 1895
Signed “E. W. Redfield” lower right
oil on canvas
21" x 28"
Redfield as Tonalist
M
ost observers equate Edward Redfield’s snow scenes
with the Pennsylvania countryside, but in fact he
developed both his interest in landscape and the winter
season while studying at the Ácademie Julian and the École
des Beaux-Arts in France. He had gone to Paris to paint
portraits, but “[h]e became fascinated with the anatomy of
the land, the seasonal rhythms of nature, and the dynamic
vital forces that shaped the environment.”1 He created
his first snow painting, Canal en Hiver, in 1891 while
lodging at the Hotel Deligant in Brolles, later exhibiting
the work at the 1891 Paris Salon.2 His stay in Brolles was
also productive on a second count. While there, he fell in
love with the innkeeper’s daughter, Elisa Deligant, and the
couple married two years later.
Like many American impressionists, Redfield’s early
work was often tonal. A Winter’s Eve is one of at least two
known paintings to show a lightening-bolt stream flashing
through a snowy field, with hints of twilight above the
horizon. The brush strokes are smoother and lighter
than his later, more fractured and heavier style. In
addition to the tonal mood, the circa 1895 date is
supported by the stretcher size. Redfield did very few
paintings measuring 21" x 28", the majority of which
are dated between 1895 and 1896.3
During those years, Redfield lived with his young
family in Glenside, Pennsylvania, the likely location
of the present scene. The style and subject represent a
curious moment for the artist. In later years, he would
paint numerous and frequently very large paintings
of streams in winter, and his reputation would come
to stand on their ambitiousness. But A Winter’s Eve
is the artist at his most anonymous and his quietest,
familiarizing himself with a favorite subject, unaware
of the heights to which it would take him.
—JFN
1 Constance Kimmerle, “Edward Redfield (1869-1965)” in Pennsylvania Impressionism, Brian H. Peterson, ed. (Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press, 2002), 202.
2 Kimmerle, 202.
3 J.M.W. Fletcher, Edward Willis Redfield: 1869-1965 (Lahaska, PA: JMWF Publishing, 1996), 153-197.
20
Provenance
From a private Connecticut collection to the gallery.
Presentation Notes
In a 4½" period reproduction gilt cove frame.
21
Leon Dabo (1868–1960)
Still Life, Flowers, circa 1901
monogram lower left
oil on canvas
25” x 20”
Tonalist Flowers
F
or a painter of serene landscapes and still-lifes,
Leon Dabo’s life was peppered with upheaval and
controversy. His father, Ignace Scott Dabo, a professor,
was forced to flee the Franco-Prussian War in 1871, and
he escaped with Leon and his two younger brothers,
Theodore Scott and Louis, to Detroit, Michigan. Once
settled, the elder Dabo worked as a decorator and
sometime artist and the brothers grew up immersed in
the visual arts.1
After Ignace Dabo’s death in 1883, the family
held on in Detroit for two years before seeking better
opportunities in New York. Dabo initially worked as
an “architectural designer,” which provided enough
income that he was able to both support his brothers
and encourage Theodore Scott’s artistic inclinations.2
Whether through his own experiments in art or his work
as a designer, Leon Dabo soon made the acquaintance of
John LaFarge (1835-1910), who would prove to be the
most significant early promoter of Dabo’s work. When
Dabo decided to pursue his own artistic education in
France, LaFarge wrote numerous letters of introduction
that allowed Dabo access to several influential ateliers,
most significantly the École des Beaux-Arts.
Dabo was drawn to the tonalist movement and
his earliest landscapes demonstrate a mastery of the
ethereal. This aesthetic is also present in Still-Life,
Flowers, one of very few known still-lifes from Dabo’s
early tonal period. Decades later, in the 1930s, bright
still-lifes would become a staple of his output. These
paintings are almost invariably dated, strengthening the
argument that the present picture was created about
1901, the same time Dabo exhibited a work at the
National Academy identified only as Still-Life.
Controversy between the Dabo brothers erupted
in 1907. Parallel to Leon, Theodore Scott Dabo had
also achieved some success as a painter in both Paris
and New York, though critics on both shores generally
preferred his brother’s work. With Theodore Scott
living in Paris and Leon in New York, the two had an
arrangement to act as each other’s sole agent. Whether
jealous of Leon’s success or simply goaded by the
youngest brother, Louis, Theodore publicly withdrew
from the arrangement and declared Louis his new
representative. The decision spurred rumors that Leon
plagiarized Theodore’s compositions while Theodore
was overseas and that Leon failed to honestly promote
his brother’s work. There is some evidence that Louis
was behind these accusations. When approached by The
New York Times, Leon stated plainly:
My brother Louis is not now and never was a painter.
My brother Theodore is an artist of great power with
whose work I do not wish my own compared. But as we
have exhibited together, I suppose it was inevitable that
people did make comparisons and express them. If some
were more favorable to me than to Theodore, that is not
1 D. Wigmore Fine Art, Leon Dabo: 1865-1960 (New York: D.Wigmore Fine Art, 1999), 2.
2 James William Pattison, “Leon Dabo—A Painter of Space” in The World To-Day: A Monthly Record of Human Progress, vol. XII (Chicago: The
World To-Day Company, 1907), 82.
22
my fault. Nor can I help it if more of my pictures are
sold . . . It’s a bad business when brothers quarrel, for
many people do not discriminate . . . They just lump
the whole family together and vote them a bad lot.3
Dabo’s career survived the controversy and
he went on to become one the country’s most
celebrated artists. In 1913, he helped organize the
landmark Armory Show and in 1944 was elected a
full academician of the National Academy of Design.
He died in New York in 1960.
—JFN
Provenance
From a private Washington, DC collection to the
gallery.
Presentation notes
In a 4½" period reproduction gilt frame with corner
detail. Expertly cleaned.
3B
rothers in Art at Loggerheads: Scott Dabo Resents Brother Leon’s Success in Vending his Own Color Poems in The New York Times, March 24, 1907.
23
Jules Turcas (1854–1917)
View to the River, 1902
signed “J. Turcas” and dated lower right
oil on canvas
25 ½" x 39 ½"
A Barbizon Moment
J
ules Turcas belonged to the first wave of artists at
the Old Lyme Art Colony, a group that produced
paintings in a style that has been referred to as the
American Barbizon. He was born in Cuba and is first
listed as a resident of New York City in 1893. In 1894,
William Merritt Chase (1849-1916) produced a portrait
of Turcas in Chase’s well-known 10th Street Studio.
The finished painting depicts the young artist as a
handsome and enigmatic figure, who’s dark and nearly
indistinct features are echoed by the brown and black
tonalities of the composition. This representation from
over a century ago seems appropriate in present day, as
both details of his life and examples of his artwork are
surprisingly scarce.
Turcas was rediscovered to some extent in 1982
when the Lyme Historical Society and the Florence
Griswold Museum published the exhibition catalogue,
Old Lyme, The American Barbizon. It is known that he
arrived in Old Lyme in 1902, and spent summers with
his wife in Florence Griswold’s home until the couple
purchased their own on top of Grassy Hill in 1907. He
exhibited with the colony for twelve consecutive seasons,
and consistently received praise from reviewers of the
annual Lyme exhibition.1 He exhibited at the National
Academy of Design, the Century Association, and
the Pennsylvania Academy of Design, while retaining
memberships in a number of notable clubs.
The deep influence of the Barbizon tradition and
Turcas’ colleagues, such as Henry Ward Ranger (18581916) and Allen Butler Talcott (1867-1908), is distinct.
With a personal sensitivity to the nuances of evening
light, sun dappled woodlands, and the atmosphere of
the landscapes of Lyme, Turcas distinguished himself
through his art. View to the River is a melancholy and
poetic work, subdued by a palette of earth tones and
amber typical of American Barbizon painters. The loose
brushwork and spontaneity of application creates an
extraordinary sense of movement, and the pastoral
scene is bathed in a golden luminosity, details which
encourage an emotional response in the viewer.
–CRM
1 Barbara J. MacAdam, “Biographies of the Artiststs” in Old Lyme: The American Barbizon (Old Lyme: Lyme Historical Society, 1982), 48.
24
Provenance
From a private New York collection to the gallery.
Presentation Notes
In a 4½" reproduction American Barbizon gilt cove
frame. Expertly cleaned and lined.
25
Abbott Handerson Thayer (1849–1921)
View to Monadnock, circa 1910
signed “Abbott Thayer” lower right
oil on canvas
23¼" x 19½"
An Artist Finds a Home
Happy, I said, whose home is here,
Fair fortunes to the mountaineer!
—Ralph Waldo Emerson,
excerpt from Monadnoc (1846)
A
bbott Handerson Thayer spent his youth in
Keene, New Hampshire, surrounded by the
verdurous woods and majestic mountains to which
he was emotionally attached. His earliest paintings
were wildlife subjects, and he was encouraged by
animal painter Henry Morse (1826-1888) to pursue
a career in art while at boarding school in Boston.
After graduation, he moved to New York City to do
so. He attended classes at the Brooklyn Art School and
National Academy of Design, but in 1875 he settled
in Paris, studying under Henri Lehmann (1814-1882)
and Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824-1904) at the École des
Beaux-Arts. While abroad he produced landscapes and
genre scenes in the Barbizon style, and on his return to
New York in 1879 he established himself as a painter
of figures and portraits.
Thayer’s early success coincided with personal
tragedy. Two sons died in infancey followed by the loss
of his wife. The death of his first son caused Thayer
to seek solace in the transcendental writings of Ralph
Waldo Emerson, whose poem Threnody, “a moving
meditation on the loss of a child, assured him of the
eternal laws governing nature and man.”1
Thayer began spending summers in Dublin, New
Hampshire in 1888, marking the beginning of the
Dublin Art Colony as it came to be known. Dublin and
the nearby town of Cornish lured painters who were in
search of tamer, more intimate landscapes which were
unaffected by the Civil War and industrialization. In
1901, Thayer, his second wife, and his surviving children
settled in Dublin, and their summer home became a
permanent residence. From his house he had an aweinspiring view of Mount Monadnock, whose snowy
peak became a motif in Thayer’s paintings for nearly two
decades. “Much influenced by the writings of Emerson,
who wrote a poem about the peak, Thayer regarded
Monadnock as both a visual synecdoche of earthly
experience and an emblem of earthly transcendence.”2
The rugged terrain of Dublin dominated by the view of
the mountain provided endless inspiration for Thayer’s
art, as well as a constant reminder of nature as both a
product of and path to a higher power.
View to Monadnock concentrates on subtle tones
and the quiet sensitivity of nature, which are distinctive
characteristics of paintings by Dublin and Cornish
Art Colony members. The shimmering pattern of soft
1 Susan Hobbs, “Nature into Art: The Landscapes of Abbott Handerson Thayer” in American Art Journal, vol. 14, no. 3 (Summer 1982), 18.
2 Ross C. Anderson. “Thayer, Abbott Handerson.” Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online. www.oxfordartonline.com/subscriber/article/grove/art/
T084338>.
26
tonalities is accented by abbreviated brushstrokes of
bright color. The slender birch trees in the foreground
frame the peak of Mount Monadnock, a fixture
delineated by broad avenues of paint. This technique
links the artist to contemporary impressionist trends,
yet references the tonal inclinations of his associates.
—CRM
Provenance
From the trade to the gallery.
Presentation Notes
In a 5" reproduction Stanford White gilt frame.
Expertly cleaned.
27
J(ames) Carroll Beckwith (1852–1917)
Lady with a Fringed Shawl, circa 1885
unsigned
oil on canvas
17" x 13"
A Woman’s Gaze
J
ames Carroll Beckwith is an artist traditionally
celebrated for his mural painting and his iconic
portrait of fellow Hannibal, Missouri native, Samuel
Clemens. Three years after the close of the Civil War,
Beckwith traveled north to Chicago to study with
Walter Sherlaw (1838-1909). In 1871, he headed east
to New York to attend the National Academy of Design
and, despite frequent trips and residencies overseas, he
would retain ties to the city for the rest of his life. While
in Manhattan, financial necessity drove Beckwith to
portrait painting. As Pepi Marchetti Franchi has noted,
Beckwith’s portraits of women during this period took
on a specific agency, and perhaps it is for these powerful
and frequently sensual images that he ought to be best
remembered.1 His subjects included Minnie Clark, the
“Original Gibson Girl,” and Evelyn Nesbitt, the scandalhaunted wife of Harry K. Thaw and former lover of
Stanford White.
Sensuality and sexuality were themes that Beckwith
explored frequently, especially in his paintings of women.
Lady with a Fringed Shawl is a visual interpretation of
female sensuality and its ability to arrest the spectator’s
attention. The woman’s face shines with a revealing and
confident gaze. She possesses an intimidating beauty, and
the seductive plunging neckline and subtle gentleness in
the shadowy regions of her expression lure the viewer
in closer. The overall effect is remarkable—the painting
is a force of sexual power accomplished entirely by
projecting the internal character of the subject outward,
without relying on devices such as overt nudity, visual
drama, or symbolic color.
Beckwith retained a patriarchal attitude toward
his female subjects. Weber quotes these remarks: “The
successful model . . . is the girl who first of all takes
care of her health, as nothing is so conducive to firm
and paintable flesh as a healthy body . . . The winning
model . . . is the girl who approaches a studio in modest
Portrait of a Man
signed upper left
oil on canvas
24" x 20"
1 Pepi Marchetti Franchi and Bruce Weber, Intimate Revelations: The Art of Carroll Beckwith (1852-1917) (New York: Berry-Hill Galleries, 2000), 26.
2 Franchi and Weber, 53-54.
28
and ladylike manner. Artists also like girls who take care
of their hair. Nothing is more important, and the girls
are far more attractive in simple, neat clothes, than in
gowns of fashionable cut and cheap material. But most
successful of all . . . is the sympathetic girl. The model
who takes an intelligent interest in her work, whether
she is beautiful or not, is a treasure to an artist.”2
The last line above offers up the real key to
understanding Beckwith’s portrayal of women. Intellect
is never subordinate to sexuality. Beckwith’s portraits of
women reflect an emerging sea-change in the American
female identity, one that would reverberate throughout
the 20th century.
Beckwith exhibited his work at the 1889 Paris
Exposition and he won the Gold Medal at the 1895
Atlanta Exposition. After suffering two years of poor
health during which he continued to paint, he died at
his home in Onteora in 1917.
–JFN/CRM
Provenance
From a private Connecticut collection to the gallery.
Presentation Notes
In a 4" reproduction Stanford White gilt frame.
Expertly cleaned.
29
Walter Griffin (1861–1935)
Early May, Old Lyme, 1907
signed “Walter Griffin” and dated lower right
signed, inscribed, and dated verso
oil on canvas
12" x 16"
Through a Frosted Window
A
s a boy, Walter Griffin watched his craftsman father
plane and scroll wood into decorative objects,
which were much sought after by the residents of
Portland, Maine. Griffin began sketching his father’s
associates and, by his early teens, displayed enough
talent for drawing that his father sent him down to the
School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, where
Griffin studied under Emil Otto Grundman (18441890) in the same class as Edmund Tarbell (18621938), Frank W. Benson (1862-1951), and Dennis
Miller Bunker (1861-1890). His education continued at
the Academie Julian in Paris, where he was first exposed
to the Barbizon style that would form the foundation for
his shift toward impressionism.
In 1897, Griffin returned to New England to accept
a position as the director of the School of the Society
of Art in Hartford, a lofty post in the Connecticut
art community previously held by Dawson DawsonWatson (1864-1939), among other notable artists.
Griffin remained in Hartford while the art colony
at Old Lyme solidified between 1899 and Childe
Hassam’s (1859-1935) arrival in 1903. In 1905, he
finally headed south and took up permanent residence
in Old Lyme.
Griffin’s close friendship with Hassam had a
significant impact on his style. His previous work had
been marked by relatively long lines in muted tones.
After meeting Hassam, his technique became “a sketchy
application of small mosaic-like brushstrokes,” as
evidenced by his innovative work, Early May, Old Lyme,
1907.1 The landscape is quiet and incandescent, tempered
by the atmospheric poetry of tonalism. In rendering the
effects of sunlight with painterly brushwork, Griffin
pays homage to his study of the Barbizon method in
Paris. The surface is composed of jewel-like fragments of
paint in which the artist’s hand is visible, and reminds
the viewer of the canvas’ two-dimensionality. The scene,
however, has incredible depth and an expansive quality,
as if the viewer was looking over the lush Old Lyme
farmland through a frosted window.
—CRM
1 Vose Galleries, Walter Griffin, exhibition catalogue (Boston: Vose Galleries, undated), 1.
30
Provenance
From the trade to the gallery.
Presentation notes
In a 3" period reproduction American impressionist
gilt frame. Expertly cleaned.
31
Lawrence Mazzanovich (1871–1959)
Harmony, circa 1910
signed “Mazzanovich” lower left
oil on canvas
26” x 32”
Rhapsody in Blue
L
awrence Mazzanovich spent his early years of study
at the Art Institute of Chicago, simultaneously
working as an apprentice to a sign painter, and
later at the Art Student’s League in New York. He
completed his artistic education in France, where
he met James Adams Thayer, a prominent American
publisher. Thayer invited Mazzanovich and his first
wife, Ann, to join him in Westport, Connecticut, where
he maintained a house and where a nascent artists’
community was forming. The Mazzanoviches accepted,
and in 1909 they settled into the artistic and social life
of the wealthy Gold Coast town.
According to Charles Teaze Clark, “a profound
change in Mazzanovich’s technique occurred after his
move to Connecticut . . . He developed an almost
pointillist application of pigment to his canvases,
especially when describing ground color and leaves.
Trees—which were often the primary elements of
his composition appear in decorative or repetitive
arrangements. The combination of exaggerated forms,
tight brushwork and rich coloration continued a
decorative trend throughout his career.”1
Harmony presents strong evidence of the shift
in Mazzanovich’s technique, while simultaneously
referencing his earlier years of working in a strictly
tonal style. The vivid use of color, repetitive stylization,
and pointillist composition are all consistent with what
became the most successful phase of Mazzanovich’s
career. Paintings such as Harmony defined the beginning
of an era during which he was placed among the
foremost landscape painters of his generation.2 The
foreground is defined by several bushes and trees,
whose leaves have begun to fall and decorate the green
grass below, creating a kaleidoscope of brightly hued
colors. The middle ground is absent, and the rolling
purple hills beneath a sketchily painted sky provide an
impressive backdrop. Although details are sparse, an
impression of density is provided by an abundance of
spontaneous brushstrokes, with various tones weaved
together in a symphonious tapestry.
—CRM
1 Charles Teaze Clark, Lawrence Mazzanovich, 1871-1959: Tryon Paintings (exhibition pamphlet issued by the Tryon Fine Arts Center, March
10—March 23, 1991), 1.
2 Clark, 6.
32
Provenance
From a private Pennsylvania collection to the gallery.
Presentation Notes
In a 6" Whistler-style reproduction gilt frame.
Expertly cleaned.
33
(Edward) Gregory Smith (1880–1961)
An Old Fashioned Winter, circa 1910
signed “Gregory Smith” lower left, signed again and titled verso
oil on canvas
24" x 30"
A Rare Old Lyme Artist
E
dward Gregory Smith, at thirty years old, was one
of the younger artists who came to Old Lyme,
Connecticut while the summer art colony was at its
peak. It was his friend and fellow painter, Will Howe
Foote (1874-1965), who encouraged Smith to move
from his hometown of Grand Rapids, Michigan to Old
Lyme in 1910.1
Smith admired a number of the artists associated
with the colony, particularly Childe Hassam (18591935) and Willard Metcalf (1858-1925). Hassam’s
influence is especially evident in An Old Fashioned
Winter in the vigorous brushwork and uncomplicated
subject matter. The light-infused composition consists
of bright hues that display the remnants of autumn,
as though the snowfall was premature. The decorative
arrangement of flattened forms is evocative of Metcalf’s
style during his intermittent visits to Old Lyme in the
first decade of the twentieth century.
Smith was awarded several of the most prestigious
exhibition prizes at the Lyme Art Association, including
the W.S. Eaton Purchase Prize, the Museum Purchase
Brook in Spring
signed lower right
oil on canvas
16" x 20"
Prize, the Mr. and Mrs. William O. Goodwin Prize,
and the Woodhull Adams Memorial Prize. Smith’s
work is generally among the rarest of the Old Lyme
Art Colony.
—CRM
1 Gregory Smith Footnote Connecticut and American Impressionism (Storrs: William Benton Museum of Art, 1980), 173.
34
Provenance
From the trade to the gallery.
Presentation Notes
In its original 3" gilt cove frame with corner
ornaments. Expertly cleaned.
35
Allen Dean Cochran (1888–1971)
Ladies by the Lake, 1912
signed “Allen D. Cochran” and dated lower right
oil on canvas
39 ½" x 49 ½"
A Fantastical Afternoon
A
llen Cochran was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, and
moved to New York to study at the Art Student’s
League after graduation from high school. When the
League moved to Woodstock, New York for summer
classes in 1906, Cochran followed. He studied under
Birge Harrison (1854-1929), Kenyon Cox (18561919), and Frank Vincent DuMond (1865-1951), all
of whom were prominent teachers in the area. With
the exception of brief painting trips, particularly to
Gloucester, as well as military and civilian duties in
the first and second world wars, Cochran rarely left the
artist colony which had formed at Woodstock.
Unlike most colonies, where artists worked
in one prevailing style, Woodstock was notable for
diversity among its painters.1 In a true reflection of his
environment, Cochran combined aspects of tonalism,
impressionism, and classicism in Ladies by the Lake.
The subtle and refined tonalism of the artwork recalls
the landscapes of Harrison. It also owns a specific
color key, which lends a soothing unity to the work
and is reminiscent of the palettes utilized by DuMond.
We see the influence of his final teacher, Cox, in the
imaginative subject matter and reference to classical
tradition. The composition centers upon two nude
females in an intimate, anonymous setting. The figures
and the scene are caressed in a dappled sunlight which
shines through the lush vegetation of the trees. A
glimpse of the lake and forest on the opposite bank
appears through the leaves, but the success of the
painting lies in the decorative details of the foreground.
The sharp, divisionist brushwork in varying shades of
green contrast beautifully with the carefully rendered
tree trunks and smooth application of paint which
reproduces the idealized figures.
Cochran was a life member of the Salmagundi
Club, and exhibited at the National Academy, Corcoran
Gallery of Art, Art Institute of Chicago, and Pennsylvania
Academy of Fine Art. He painted well into his sixties and
died in Woodstock in 1971.
—CRM
1 The Woodstock Art Colony: June 26, 1999 through October 17, 1999 <http://www.tfaoi.com/newsm1/n1m319.htm>
36
Provenance
From the trade to the gallery.
Presentation Notes
In its original 3½" gilt Arts & Craft frame with
corner detail. Expertly cleaned and lined, new
stretcher.
37
Frederick Winthrop Ramsdell (1865–1915)
The Old Beech, 1912
signed and dated lower left
oil on canvas
25" x 30"
In the Forests of Lyme
F
rederick Winthrop Ramsdell, a native of Michigan,
studied with the prominent American impressionist,
J. Carroll Beckwith (1852-1917) at New York’s Art
Students League. He later studied in Paris and exhibited
at the Paris Salon numerous times between the years
1891 and 1898. By 1907, after several years in France
and Italy, the artist returned to America and settled in
Old Lyme, Connecticut.
The aesthetics of The Old Beech are strongly
reminiscent of the Barbizon mode that the Old Lyme
Art Colony painters had practiced under the leadership
of Henry Ward Ranger (1858-1916) from 1900 until
1904. Constructed with discreet units of paint and
generous use of palette knife, Ramsdell created a rough
and expressive surface. The texture fosters a visual
richness that emulates the density of a woodland
scene. The abstract concerns of harmony and the twodimensional arrangement of forms take precedence over
naturalism, and color is used not only to define the
spatial relationships of the scene but also to engage the
emotions of the viewer. “The painters of Lyme sought to
attain a synthesis of realism, based upon what they saw,
with a subjective interpretation of nature, based upon
what they felt.”1 Artists such as Ramsdell considered this
visual dialogue between artist and viewer their primary
mission, an objective which Ranger endorsed during his
short time at Miss Florence’s home.
The focus of the Old Lyme Art Colony shifted
after the arrival of Childe Hassam (1859-1935), “the
greatest exponent of Impressionism in America,” in
1903.2 His charm and impassioned method of painting
inspired other artists to incorporate qualities of American
impressionism into their work. By the time Ramsdell
created The Old Beech in 1912, a style had evolved
which reflected a synthesis of Barbizon and Giverny.
This fusion was demonstrated by artists such as Clark
Voorhees (1871-1933), Matilda Browne (1869-1947),
and Frank Bicknell (1866-1943). The influence of
impressionism on Ramsdell’s creation can be scene in
the patterned design of bright autumnal colors.
—CRM
1 Barbara J. MacAdam, “Biographies of the Artiststs” in Old Lyme: The American Barbizon (Old Lyme: The Lyme Historical Society, 1982), 11-12.
2 Albert Gallatin, “Childe Hassam: A Note,” in Collector and Art Critic 5 (January 1907), 101-104.
38
Provenance
From a private Connecticut collection to the gallery.
Presentation Notes
In its original 7" period American Barbizon frame.
Expertly cleaned.
39
Edward F. Rook (1870–1960)
Snow, Ice, and Foam (The Bradbury Mill), 1912
signed and titled on PAFA label of 1912, verso
oil on canvas
40" x 50"
A Favored Old Lyme Motif
E
dward Rook arrived in Old Lyme in 1903, the year
that marks the arrival of Childe Hassam (1859-1935)
and the art colony’s conversion from a Barbizon-inspired
tonalist aesthetic to American impressionism. Rook had
spent the majority of the 1890s studying in Paris and
returned to the United States in 1898. He purchased a
home in Old Lyme in 1905, and began a career which
was exclusively associated with the colony.
Rook stands apart from his contemporaries both
in style and reputation. Coming from a wealthy family,
he remained unmotivated to seek out patrons and New
York galleries, or participate extensively in national
exhibitions. His dynamic technique, visible in Snow, Ice,
and Foam (The Bradbury Mill), makes Rook’s pictures
unique among those by painters of Old Lyme. “Since
the expression of strength and energy was among the
major motivations for his work, rather than the colorful
sweetness of much American impressionist painting, he
did not enjoy the popularity accorded to many of his
contemporaries by patrons and critics.”1 His large and
striking artworks have earned him the status as one of
the most original Old Lyme Art Colony members.
Rook displayed a strong affinity for painting the
plentiful bunches of mountain laurel which grew in Old
Lyme, as well as the defunct Bradbury Mill. Between
1905 and 1917, there are at least eight paintings which
center on the rustic mill. One of his first examples was
dedicated to Florence Griswold in place of a panel in
the dining room, and the painting earned a coveted
spot above the fireplace for many years.2 Snow, Ice,
and Foam (The Bradbury Mill) is a prime example of
the beloved local landmark in Rook’s signature style.
The large canvas is imbued with an incredible sense
of space and vivacity. The foreground, middle ground,
and background are inventively organized on planes
that recede into the distance in a zigzag, which creates
an expansive quality in all directions. The shadows of
the leafless trees against the fresh snow have a jeweled
quality, as different shades of light blue and lavender
dance across the surface. These tones are echoed
throughout the composition, particularly in the building
and the swirling waters which rush from the dam. The
calm scene is complimented by a clear blue sky, which
offers a promise of respite from the snowfall.
—CRM
1 William H. Gerdts, Masterworks of American Impressionism (Einsiedeln: Karl-Ulrich Majer, 1990), 128.
2 Florence Griswold Museum Online Resources, Fox Chase Icons, Edward Rook <http://www.florencegriswoldmuseum.org/learning/foxchase/
html/edward_rook.php>.
40
Provenance
From a private Connecticut collection to the gallery.
Presentation Notes
Original signature lost due to in-painting. In a 4"
reproduction gilt cove frame with leaf corner detail.
41
Frederick Milton Grant (1886–1959)
Female Bather with Swan, circa 1920
signed lower right
oil on canvas
30" x 30"
Swan and Sensuality
F
rederick Milton Grant, an Iowa native who later
settled in Chicago, was referred to as “the greatest
colorist Chicago has ever had” by a critic for the Tribune
in 1952.1 He quickly became known for his dynamic
impressionist style and fine design. The teachings
of William Merritt Chase (1849-1916) in Venice,
inspiration from the art of Claude Monet (1840-1926) in
Paris, and a concern for modernist aesthetics proved to
be Grant’s most significant influences when producing
paintings such as Female Bather with Swan. This large
composition presents the hallmark characteristics of
Grant’s cumulative style.
In Female Bather with Swan, the verdant scenery
provides an impressive environment for the romantic
subject matter. The surface of the canvas is rich and
painterly, with each stroke of the staccato brushwork
defined by luminous color. The artwork is dominated by
a flourishing landscape, yet the presence of the female
nude and the swan offers a meditation on the interplay
of imagination and reality. Swans are recurrent in
mythology and folklore, usually as traditional symbols
of beauty and grace, such as the heroine in Swan Lake,
the Swan-Maidens that appear in Norse legend, or as
the companions of Aphrodite.2 The tranquility and
softness of the white bird is reflected in the composure
of the female bather, who rests by the water’s edge.
Richness of color, knowledge of structure, and
essence of atmosphere distinguished Grant’s artwork
for the rest of his life. His compositions received various
prizes, most notably from the Art Institute of Chicago.
He moved to Oakland, California shortly after World
War II, and remained artistically active until his death
at the age of seventy-two.
—CRM
1 America Gone Modern: From the Twenties to the Sixties, exhibition catalogue (New York: Spanierman Gallery, 2000),
2 Jack Tressider, “Swan” in The Complete Dictionary of Symbols (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2005), 459.
42
49.
Provenance
From the trade to the gallery.
Presentation Notes
In its original 5" Stanford White gilt frame. Expertly
cleaned.
43
Susan Ricker Knox (1874–1959)
In the Push Cart Market, 1922
Signed “Susan Ricker Knox” lower left
oil on board
14" x 18"
United Colors
S
usan Ricker Knox excelled at painting portraits
and figure works of mothers with children, often
commissioned by wealthy American families. She was
also known for pen and ink silhouettes, but it was her
studies of Ellis Island immigrants that captured the
nation’s interest. In 1920, for ninety days she traveled
to the island to paint, producing thirty-two studies of
recent immigrants from many ethnic backgrounds. A
curator for the Clergy Club in New York asked to exhibit
the works in 1921, and it was there that the chairman
of the Immigration and Naturalization Committee of the
House of Representatives saw them. At the time, there
was much deliberation regarding immigration quotas
among members of Congress, and this man asked to
have the works displayed in the Committee Room at the
House of Representatives to reiterate his position that
quotas were needed.1
Knox, a native of New Hampshire, studied at the
Drexel Institute in Philadelphia with Howard Pyle (18531911), the Cooper Union Art School in New York City
with Douglas Volk (1856-1935) and Clifford Grayson
(1857-1951). She then studied in Europe from 1906 to
1907. During summers in York Harbor, Maine she and
her mother paid for their lodging with their paintings.
She also traveled widely in the Southwest, where until
the mid-1930s she painted during the winters. However,
she lived primarily in New York City.
The beginning of the twentieth century witnessed
the transformation of New York City into a teeming
and thriving metropolis. In the 1920s, the city was
home to nearly six million residents and was a center
of manufacturing, commerce, and culture.2 The influx
of immigrants through ports, by road, and by rail had
a dynamic impact on the city and its ever-growing
population. Knox wrote, “I followed immigrants down
into the streets of the lower East Side of New York, and
found them established in their businesses, and a part of
the commercial activities of their adopted land. I think art
should concern itself with the conditions of the time in
which the artist lives, especially when color is so rampant
as in the lives of these foreigners.”3 Created in 1922 with
the artist’s unyielding strokes and high-contrast palette,
In the Push Cart Market exemplifies the beginning stages
of this diverse vibrancy. The artwork epitomizes the vigor
and commotion of the crowded city marketplace, both in
its subject matter and style. Knox draws on the visible
world but also displays the essence of the experience in
the composition’s abstract formulations.
Knox’s artistic career and residency in New York
City coincided with the development of the Ashcan
1 Deborah M. Child and Jane D. Kaufmann, Susan Ricker Knox: Portsmouth and Beyond (American Art Review, Volume X, Number 4, July-August
1998), pp. 134-139.
2 Nancy Foner, From Ellis Island to JFK: New York’s Two Great Waves of Immigration (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002), 2.
3 Paul E. Sternberg, Sr., Centennial Exhibition 1889-1989 by Members Past and Present of the National Association of Women Artists (Gainesville:
Brenau College, 1990), 33.
44
School, a group of observational realist painters who
worked in the city and whose subjects were from
everyday, mostly working-class urban life. While she
was not a member of this school, Knox was inspired
by the vigorous, painterly freedom and humanist
agenda of the Ashcan artists.
Though Knox was prolific, few of her works
have been seen by the public in the years since her
death in Concord, New Hampshire in 1959. Many
of her paintings are still in the families for whom
she painted them, and have never been sold. In the
Push Cart Market is a rare and significant example of
not only her life’s work, but her belief that art should
be concerned with social conditions in order to raise
awareness of them.
—CRM
Provenance
From the trade to the gallery.
Presentation Notes
In a 5" reproduction gilt modernist frame with slight
ogee design.
45
Guy C. Wiggins (1883–1962)
Springtime, New Haven, 1930
Signed “Guy Wiggins” lower right, titled and dated on verso
oil on canvas
25" x 30"
B
y the time he established the Guy Wiggins Art
School in 1930, Wiggins was already one of the
nation’s best known impressionist painters. His views of
New York in winter and the Connecticut countryside in
the warmer seasons were in increasingly high demand.
Once word spread that he had opened his own school,
Wiggins quickly registered enough students to offer
classes in Old Lyme during the summer and New Haven
in the winter.
Springtime, New Haven looks down Temple Street
and includes the facades of Center Church and the
United Congregational Church, two of the three famed
“houses of worship” that anchor the town green. Behind
them, the green continues to the boundary of Yale
College, marked by the silhouette of Phelp’s Gate in the
distance. While Wiggins continued his school in Old
Lyme for the next seven years and later took it with him
when he relocated across the Connecticut River to Essex,
evidence suggests that the New Haven branch was only
active in 1930. Still, Wiggins was a key figure in Elm
City art circles and was a member of the New Haven
Paint and Clay Club.
Springtime, New Haven is executed with the same
broken brushstrokes and bustling composition as
Wiggin’s famous winter scenes of New York. Like
many of those paintings, the artist’s view here is also
elevated. The panorama of architecture, especially the
inclusion of the two ancient churches, lends a feeling
of timelessness mitigated by the hurry of students
and the presence of automobiles. Wiggins himself was
notoriously unsentimental about his work and painting
in general, but here, with the grandeur of New Haven
and Yale by his hand, it is tempting to view the painting
as a collision of American treasures.
—JFN
46
Provenance
From a private Chicago collection to the gallery.
Presentation Notes
In its original 4" Newcomb-Macklin gilt cove frame
with period detail.
47
Guy C. Wiggins (1883–1962)
Winter, Washington Square, circa 1935
signed “Guy Wiggins NA” lower right
oil on canvas
25" x 30"
Wiggins Goes to Washington (Square)
G
uy Wiggins built his fame on impressionist winter
scenes of New York. He painted throughout the
city, from Central Park down to Wall Street, often
seeking out an elevated view from which he could
capture a panoramic sense of the urban landscape. But
of all his New York subjects, Washington Square was
among his most favored. From the late 1930s to the
early 1940s, he kept a studio on Washington Square
South, and he “painted every angle of the Square from
that window, at all hour and in all kinds of weather, as
well as at all seasons of the year.”1
Wiggins’ fascination with winter scenes began
about 1921, when he painted a small view of Washington
Square for an exhibition in Richmond, Virginia. His
winter paintings sold rapidly and provided him with a
relatively reliable source of income. Winter, Washington
Square is a classic Wiggins composition, built on
a combination of architecture, bustling crowds, and
automobiles or public transportation. These elements
reflect the city’s vitality, even in the coldest months, and
contribute to his persistent appeal.
Wiggins learned to paint by observing his father,
Carleton Wiggins (1848-1932), the eminent American
Barbizon school and tonalist painter. Carleton exposed
his son to a variety of landscapes, from the English
Autumn in the Rock Lot
signed, Guy Wiggins, lower left
oil on canvas
25" x 30"
seaside, to New Jersey marshes, to the rolling hillsides
of Lyme, where the elder Wiggins was a founding
member of the Lyme Art Colony. Lyme would become
the younger Wiggins’ home away from New York.
While his landscapes of meadows and forest interiors
display the same technical mastery as his city scenes,
Wiggins in winter is the artist at his most famous.
—JFN
1 Anne Cohen DePietro, Wiggins, Wiggins & Wiggins (New York: Joan Whalen Fine Art, 1998), 8.
48
Provenance
From a private Connecticut collection to the gallery.
Presentation Notes
In a 5" Arts & Crafts reproduction gilt frame.
Expertly cleaned and lined.
49
Robert Bruce Crane (1857–1937)
November, circa 1925
signed “Bruce Crane–NA” lower right
oil on canvas
30" x 40"
Mist of Memory
T
owards the end of Robert Bruce Crane’s career,
he was less interested in strict representation and
more so in discovering and depicting “intimate pockets
of nature that held what were for him universal truths.”1
It was with this mindset, typical of tonalist artists, that
the poetically refined November was created. Crane’s
focus on tonal painting grew out of his training with
Alexander Helwig Wyant (1836-1892) and his interest
in French Barbizon painting, which he encountered in
France at Grez-sur-Loing in 1882. At Grez-sur-Loing,
he was introduced to the art of Jean Charles Cazin
(1841-1901), a leading French landscape painter of the
nineteenth century. Crane praised the artist’s ability in a
letter to his father from France, noting that in the work
of Cazin “tone is the thing sought for, objects are never
modeled, and everything is treated as a flat mass.”2
Cazin also relied more on memory and imagination
than sketches and other records when painting, which
contributed to Crane’s later tendency to do the same,
sacrificing the accuracy of specific details in exchange
for the beauty of color, line, feeling, and mood.
Although Crane was a leading practitioner of
American tonalism, he was also accomplished in
impressionist and Barbizon styles of painting. November
portrays a skillful balance between these two artistic
sensibilities. The patchwork and delicate transitions of
gray and mauve betray the inclinations of a tonalist. An
overcast sky veils a diffused light. These subtle shifts in
color are interspersed with distinctive elements: distant
hills, a leafless tree, cart paths, a tree stump, and a
fieldstone wall. Furthermore, the broken brushwork
in the foreground and rich sense of atmosphere have
impressionist qualities. The rich green patches in the
field provide the last semblances of summer and bridge
the two styles seamlessly.
A quiet landscape, November beautifully expresses
Crane’s interests as a painter. Here, Crane conveys
a mood of tranquility by limiting his palette to
monochromatic tones and by creating a horizontal
composition of barren simplicity. The composition
characteristically combines observation and memory;
the forms dissolve into each other as if quickly viewed
in a passing glance, saturated in an impenetrable mist.
Along with Henry Ward Ranger (1858-1916) and
J. Francis Murphy (1853-1921), Crane popularized the
tonalist style at the art colony in Old Lyme, Connecticut,
where he spent his summers beginning about 1904. He
moved to Bronxville, New York in 1914 and resided there
for more than two decades until his death in 1937.
—CRM
1 Charles Teaze Clark, “The Touch of Man: The Landscapes of Bruce Crane” in Bruce Crane: American Tonalist (Old Lyme: Lyme Historical
Society, 1984), 12.
2 Barbara J. MacAdam, “Biographies of the Artists” in Old Lyme: The American Barbizon (Old Lyme: Lyme Historical Society, 1982), 37.
50
Provenance
From the trade to the gallery.
Presentation Notes
In a stunning 4" period Art & Crafts gilt frame with
corner detail. Expertly cleaned.
51
Wilson H. Irvine (1869–1936)
Winter Brook, circa 1930
signed “Irvine” lower right
oil on canvas
25" x 30"
Prism of Winter
I
n 1983, Mongerson Galleries of Chicago held the
largest exhibition of Wilson Irvine’s work since his
death in 1936.1 The event was a reclaiming of sorts.
Irvine had been born in Illinois and had established
himself as an artist in Chicago, but his association with
the Old Lyme Art Colony and his long residence in
nearby Hamburg distanced him from his Midwestern
roots. Mongerson’s exhibition recalled the magnificent
and numerous solo exhibitions of Irvine’s work held in
Chicago in 1914, 1916-17, 1922, and in 1924.2 The
effect of such an exhibition in 1983 was to re-establish
Irvine as a national artist whose appeal reached beyond
the eastern seaboard.
Wilson Irvine first came to Old Lyme in either 1905
or 1906, and spent three consecutive summers in the
region beginning around 1914. In 1918, he purchased
“Brooksound,” an attractive colonial manse just east of
Hamburg Cove.3 From then until 1928, Irvine’s career
made steady progress and he exhibited throughout the
country, including Atlanta, an uncommon venue for a
New England artist. In 1928, Irvine left on a painter’s
grand tour of Europe, visiting museums from Madrid
to Paris. He returned in April of 1929 and the following
summer entered a new phase of his career.
Winter Brook is a sterling example of Irvine’s
“prismatic” style, which he exhibited for the first time in
Old Lyme in the summer of 1929, though he may have
first experimented with the technique as early as 1926.4
The following March, he exhibited twenty-two prismatic
paintings at Grand Central Art Galleries. “Any object
viewed through a prism, [Irvine] stated, developed
around its edges a halo of refracted light, more greenish
against a light background and more reddish against
a dark.”5 While some prismatic paintings distort the
subject, in Winter Brook Irvine’s revolutionary method
amplifies the glint of light off the snow and water, and
strengthens the composition.
Though Old Lyme remains his primary
association, Irvine is celebrated today as a leading
American artist of national reputation. He was a
member of the Chicago Society of Artists, the Cliff
Dwellers, the Salmagundi Club, the National Arts
Club, and the Lyme Art Association. The renowned
collection of the Hartford Steam Boiler Inspection and
Insurance Company, now at the Florence Griswold
Museum, includes two of his paintings.
—JFN
1 Wilson Irvine, exhibition catalogue (Chicago: Mongerson Galleries, 1983), i-iii.
2 Harold Spencer, Wilson Henry Irvine and the Poetry of Light (Old Lyme: Florence Griswold Museum, 1998), 58.
3 Spencer, 24.
4 Harold Spencer, “Wilson Henry Irvine” in American Art Review, vol. x, no. 4 (1998), 131.
5 Spencer, “Wilson Henry Irvine”, 132.
52
Provenance
From a private New Jersey collection to the gallery.
Presentation Notes
In an ornate 5" period Barbizon gilt frame with
pineapple corners. Expertly cleaned.
53
Ogden Minton Pleissner (1905–1983)
Vezin, 1933
signed “Pleissner” lower right
oil on canvas
29½" x 273 8 "
A Master Paints His Mentor
V
ezin is a poignant tribute to Ogden Pleissner’s
mentor, the artist Charles Vezin (18581942). A rare and brilliant example of Pleissner’s
draftsmanship and sensitivity to the figure—Vezin’s
hunched concentration, the scattering of canvases,
the Manhattan harbor visible through the window
painted more in Vezin’s style than Pleissner’s own—all
transcend the details of representation to capture the
soul of the subject. Executed alongside Pleissner’s
other Brooklyn scenes from this period, most notably
Brooklyn Heights, Vezin stands out as a true masterpiece
of American art.
Born into an upper middle class German-American
family from Brooklyn, New York, Pleissner’s parents
encouraged him to attend Williams College, but instead
he enrolled in classes at the Art Students League in
Manhattan.1 It was there he likely first met Vezin,
himself an alumnus of the school and a close friend of
the legendary art instructor Frank Vincent DuMond
(1865-1951). Both Vezin and DuMond embraced
Pleissner for his talent and his inclination to carry on
the representational tradition in the face of modernism’s
growing popularity.
Pleissner maintained a close friendship with Vezin.
The two men had much in common. Vezin prided
himself on his German heritage and maintained a studio
near Pleissner’s family on the Brooklyn waterfront,
the same studio where Pleissner painted his portrait.
Pleissner’s father and Vezin worked in similar industries,
importing different types of cloth from Europe.2 And
perhaps most significantly, both Vezin and Pleissner
credited DuMond with having a profound impact on
their artistic development.
During the 1933 Lyme Art Exhibition, then a
nationally significant event, the portrait hung alongside
several works by Vezin featuring his beloved subjects—
the New York skyline and the harbors of Brooklyn and
Manhattan. The painting itself was nearly destroyed
shortly after its completion. In late June of 1933,
Vezin arranged with Pleissner’s wife, Mary, to ship the
painting to Boxwood, a boarding house in Old Lyme
where Vezin occasionally rented rooms. On July 3,
Vezin wrote to Mary:
Vezin by Ogden M. Pleissner arrived yesterday
morning, in a very large box because it was packed
with three of my frames. It was so large and heavy that
I had it laid flat on the piazza below the outside studio
at Boxwood. It has a big imprint across the front “Keep
Dry”, which was hardly appropriate as Connecticut
has just gone wet!3 I left the box there, for a visit to
Popsky’s Roost [his Grassy Hill studio] with the sky a
beautiful clear blue and no indication of trouble. While
I was gone there came a veritable cloudburst and
tornado, which broke down a lot of fine trees in this
section. I was caught in this storm in my car, coming
1 Peter Bergh, The Art of Ogden M. Pleissner (Boston: David R. Godine, 1984), 3.
2 Bergh, 3.
3 This comment is likely a reference to Connecticut’s passage of the 21st Amendment which ended Prohibition. Vezin was accustomed to enjoying a moderate glass of beer a day.
54
down the back road from Grassy Hill to Popsky’s
Roost. The woods were black as night, and I had to
drive very slowly for fear of running into fallen trees.
My first thought was of that box containing Vezin. I
immediately rushed to look at it and found Ah Yow,
that Chinese servant you have seen, had spread a lot of
Chinese umbrellas all over that box. Bless her Oriental
heart! I opened the box with trembling and found the
layers of wrapping paper forming depressions filled
with water. But, thank heaven, the paper was tough
enough to hold the water and there was no damage
whatsoever.4
The portrait did not sell during the exhibition
and has remained in the Vezin family until the present
offering. In 1932, the Metropolitan Museum of
American Art purchased Pleissner’s Backyards, Brooklyn,
making him at 27 the youngest artist in the museum’s
collection at the time. Vezin exceeds that effort, and
is unquestionably the most significant Pleissner to be
offered in recent memory.
—JFN
Provenance
From a private collection in Connecticut to the
gallery.
Presentation Notes
In its original 4" gilt cove frame.
4 Charles Vezin, letter to Mary Pleissner, July 3, 1933, Old Lyme, CT. Vezin family archive.
55
Winfield Scott Clime (1881–1958)
Pleasant Valley, circa 1935
signed “Winfield Scott Clime” lower right, signed again, titled, and
inscribed “Old Lyme, Conn” on verso.
oil on canvas
30" x 36"
The Artist’s Masterpiece
B
orn in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1881,
Winfield Scott Clime trained at both the Corcoran
Art School and the Art Students League in New
York.1 While primarily identified with the Old Lyme
Art Colony, Clime built the early stages of his career
in Washington, DC where he, along with Charles
Seaton (1865-1926), co-founded a group originally
known as “The Ramblers” in 1916, though in 1919
they took on the more formal name, the Landscape
Club of Washington.2 After a brief stop in Jersey City,
New Jersey, Clime eventually came to Connecticut
and it was while he was living in Old Lyme that
Clime reached the peak of his career, evidenced by
three consecutive showings at the National Academy
of Design from 1931 to 1933.3
In Old Lyme, Clime was best known for his
graphically strong compositions that reflected the New
England lifestyle made popular during the previous
century by printmakers such as Nathaniel Currier
(1813-1888). Pleasant Valley presents an Old Lyme
hillside divided vertically by bold trees and horizontally
by a high-keyed waterway, likely the Eight Mile
River. Small homes dot the landscape, hinting at the
quaintness that is usually more prominent in Clime’s
work. Here the architecture blends into the landscape
and allows the painting to stand on its considerable
merit. The light falling on the swale, the course of the
river, the distant vista, and the cool shadow where
the artist has placed the viewer, all combine to create
Clime’s most ambitious and successful effort.
—JFN
1 Jane Hayward and William Ashby McCloy, eds. The Art Colony at Old Lyme: 1900-1935 (New London: Connecticut College, 1966), 59.
2 www.askart.com.
3 Peter Falk, ed. The Annual Exhibition Record of the National Academy of Design: 1901-1950 (Madison: Sound View Press, 1990), 134.
56
Provenance
From the trade to the gallery, to a private
Connecticut collection, to the gallery.
Presentation Notes
In a 5" contemporary gilt frame with corner and side
ornaments, gilt liner also with corner detail. Original
stretcher attached to new stretcher. Expertly cleaned
and lined.
57
Carl J. Lawless (1894–1964)
Snow in the Washoe Valley, circa 1940
signed lower right
oil on canvas
30" x 30"
The Sierra Nevadas in Sharp Relief
C
arl Lawless, a native of Illinois, studied at
the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts and the
Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts prior to World War
I. As a recipient of the Cresson traveling scholarship
from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, he
studied in Europe after the war’s end. Upon his return
he relocated to Pennsylvania. He became enchanted by
the shore town of Mystic, Connecticut when visiting a
married couple with whom he had studied in Europe.
He later purchased a home in Mystic in 1925 and
immediately became an active member in the budding
local art association.1
The most notable aspect of Lawless’ approach
to landscape painting is his ability to incorporate
certain “patterns into an overall design that [is]
authentic to nature.”2 Snow in the Washoe Valley is
a cool, crisp snowscape that focuses on the serene
geometry of the Sierra Nevada mountains. Lawless
occasionally visited this barn in the Washoe Valley
at the invitation of George Leonard (1869-?), owner
of the ranch and a fellow member of the Mystic Art
Association. His bold and vigorous style in depicting
the scene is characterized by highly structured forms
which represent the underlying design of nature.
The spatial relationships of the panoramic scene are
defined by the details, such as the vegetation scattered
along the mountainside appropriately rendered in
accordance with linear perspective.
Fresh Snow in the Village
signed “Carl Lawless” lower right
oil on canvas
18" x 18"
Light and shadow also have a prominent role in
the composition’s definition of space, a quality which
Lawless most likely adopted from a fellow Mystic
resident and member of the art association, Charles
Harold Davis (1856-1933). Davis, too, is well known
for his richly hued scenes with an emphasis on the
effects of natural light. Davis used subtle shifts in color
to fill the air with depth, just as Lawless does in Snow
in the Washoe Valley. The clearly defined angles of the
1 Priscilla W. Pratt and Lois H. Constantine, “Carl Lawless” in News and Views (1998), 7.
2 Pratt and Constantine, 7.
58
buildings, as well as the path leading over the land in
the foreground, create the proscenium for the majestic
scene beyond. These aesthetic elements, when paired
with the artist’s dazzling palette, produce a striking and
exceptional work of art.
—CRM
Provenance
A private collection in Mystic, Connecticut to the
gallery.
Presentation Notes
In a 4½" period reproduction gilt cove frame with
modernist corner detail.
59
Priscilla Warren Roberts (1916–2001)
Tulips, circa 1950
unsigned
oil on board
24" x 18"
Magical Realist?
P
riscilla Roberts described herself as a realist painter,
not the “magic realist” critics and curators labeled her.
Implied in the difference between the terms is that Roberts’
method of viewing the world was, to her, straightforward,
while others saw in her still-lifes and portraits the uncovered
magic of everyday things.1 In the United States, the
magic realist movement can be traced to the seminal
1943 exhibition American Realists and Magic Realists at the
Museum of Modern Art. The title of the exhibition suggests
that the struggle to define what separated the two styles
existed as long as the magic realist movement itself. Alfred
H. Barr, the inaugural director of MOMA, attempted to
clarify magic realism as: “a term sometimes applied to work
of painters who by means of an exact realist technique try to
make plausible and convincing their improbable, dreamlike
or fantastic visions.”2
In its highly stylized composition and moderately
skewed palette, Tulips is a fine cross-section of realism
and fantastic vision. The arrangement hints at animation,
as if the flowers bent themselves over for an improved
view of their environment. The almost eerie greens
and purples are further evidence of altered perception,
and the scattered leaves and petals confirm that, like
all things alive, the subject is also in decay, a fact that
anchors the composition in the “real” world.
Roberts was born in Glen Ridge, New Jersey and
was determined from a young age to be an artist. She
Self Portrait with Books
unsigned
oil on canvas
19 ¾" x 24"
studied briefly at Radcliffe College and the Yale School
of Art, but received her primary art instruction at the Art
Students League and the National Academy of Design.
She lived the majority of her life in Wilton, Connecticut
and her artwork can be found in the permanent
collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the
Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, the Dallas Museum
of Fine Art, and other institutions. She exhibited
extensively at the National Academy of Design, winning
both the Hallgarten Prize in 1947 and the Proctor
Portrait Prize in 1969.3
1 www.askart.com.
2 Dorothy C. Miller, “Forward and Acknowledgement” in American Realists and Magic Realists, exhibition catalogue
(New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1943), 5.
3 Peter Falk, ed. Who Was Who in American Art, vol. III (Madison: Soundview Press, 1999), 2788.
60
—JFN
Provenance
From the artist, to a private Connecticut collection,
to the gallery.
Presentation Notes
In a 4" contemporary Whistler-style gilt frame.
61
Ralph Eugene Cahoon, Jr. (1910–1982)
The Goose Hunt, circa 1955
signed “R. Cahon” lower right
oil on masonite
19" x 24"
Surprise in the Water
I
n her exceptional article, “Mermaids and More: The
Whimsical Primitives of Ralph Cahoon,” Madelia
Hickman identifies three types of Cahoon paintings:
satires of historical events, satires of everyday events set
against the backdrop of specific geographical locations,
and fantastical scenes.1 The Goose Hunt is a sterling
example of the latter. A father and son have gone out
to hunt geese by boat, only to have a mermaid, both
hunter and hunted in the fairy tales, deliver the prey.
To a degree, the narrative is symbolically American—a
journey into the wilderness in search of one thing yields
the discovery of something wholly different.
As Hickman notes, the innate “American-ness”
of Cahoon’s paintings explain their popular appeal.
Cahoon’s coterie of symbols—mermaids, hot air balloons,
and other anachronistic collisions of technology, history,
and legend—reinforce the idea of America as myth.
Simply put, in this country, anything is possible.
Ralph Cahoon was born in Chatham, Massachusetts
and studied at the School of Practical Art in Boston. He
worked part-time as an antiques dealer and kept a shop
in Osterville on Cape Cod. Cahoon and his wife, fellow
artist Martha Farham, later moved to Cotuit, where they
established a permanent home and studio. Cahoon first
experimented with what has become his trademark
style in 1953. After his death in 1982, his home was
converted to a museum.2 The Cahoon Museum of
American Art remains open today.
—JFN
1 Madelia Hickman, “Mermaids and More: The Whimsical Primitives of Ralph Cahoon,” in Antiques and Fine Art magazine < http://antiquesandfineart.com/articles/article.cfm?request=459>, 2008.
2 Hickman.
62
Provenance
From a private Connecticut collection to the gallery.
Presentation Notes
In its original 3" walnut cove frame with gilt liner.
63
www.cooleygallery.com