Thomas Hart Benton: Preserving the American Past, II

May 13, 2010 — Lisa N. Peters
Thomas Hart Benton - The Narrows, Buffalo River (Arkansas)

Thomas Hart Benton, "The Narrows, Buffalo River" (Arkansas), 1964, Oil on panel, 8 1/2 x 11 inches

Lisa N. Peters

In addition to the wash drawing created by Thomas Hart Benton as an illustration for Virginia Eifert’s Three Rivers South: The Story of Young Abe Lincoln (1953), two new paintings by Benton arrived recently at the gallery, each accompanied by a letter from the artist! The first, The Narrows, Buffalo River is described by Benton as follows (original of letter below):

The “Narrows” is a high but narrow cliff on the Buffalo River, in northwestern Arkansas.  The pool of still water, where the fisherman is casting, is just above a “ripple” of fast water that ends before another famous cliff. The “Bat cave,” the base of which is in the water. I made the studies for this painting a few feet from our camp.  The fisherman is Bernie Hoffman of Kansas City. –Thomas H. Benton, March 30, 1974
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Edward Moran: Seeing Paris in a Different Light

January 14, 2010 — Spanierman Gallery, LLC
Edward Moran - Notre Dame de Paris

Edward Moran (1829-1901), "Notre Dame de Paris," ca. 1878, oil on canvas, 36 x 27 inches

Carol Lowrey

When we think of the numerous American painters who responded to the beauty of Paris, names of impressionists such as Childe Hassam and John Singer Sargent immediately come to mind.  Thus, I was pleasantly surprised when one of my assignments for the gallery involved writing an essay on Edward Moran’s Notre Dame de Paris (left). Why such enthusiasm (aside from my being an avid Francophile)?  Well, you just don’t see too many Parisian pictures by Moran (1829-1901), a realist painter and the eldest member of a famous family of artists that included his brothers Thomas (1837-1926) and Peter (1841-1914).  A notable figure on the New York art scene during the late nineteenth century, Moran is best known for his seascapes, ranging from lonely coastal scenes to representations of New York harbor.  His work was exhibited at venues such as the National Academy of Design in New York and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia, attracting a steady stream of patronage from affluent collectors and acclaim from contemporary critics, who admired his ability to convey mood, light and atmosphere. Read the rest of this entry »

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New York Snows Of Yesteryear and Today! A Painting by Bela de Tirefort

December 22, 2009 — Lisa N. Peters

Lisa N. Peters

Bela de Tirefort, "Winter, Fifth Avenue, New York," 1935

Bela de Tirefort, "Winter, Fifth Avenue, New York," 1935

Winter’s arrival and the first snowfall of the year turn our attention to the New York snow scenes by artists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, which record days when city streets regularly remained white from heavy snowfalls and the angular forms of buildings and the grit of the city were obscured by shimmering mists.  The softened forms and tonal nuances of this subject were seemingly just made for Impressionist and Tonalist artists to explore.  Among those who did so were Childe Hassam and Paul Cornoyer, and most notably Guy Carleton Wiggins, who stated in 1924 that he found that not only did “things not go right” when he tried to paint a summer landscape on a winter day in Manhattan, but stuck to winter canvases because in his exhibitions, they “sold before anything else.”

Another artist drawn to this subject was Bela de Tirefort, who was born in Eastern Europe, and who, in addition to painting, was the chairman in the early 1940s of the Washington Square Outdoor Art Exhibition, one of the aspects of which at the time was to support the war effort.  Read the rest of this entry »

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Elizabeth Nourse: An Expatriate in Paris

December 2, 2009 — Spanierman Gallery, LLC

Elizabeth Nourse - View of the Luxembourg Gardens, Paris

Elizabeth Nourse (1859-1938) "View of the Luxembourg Gardens, Paris," ca. 1905, watercolor and charcoal on paper laid on board, 16 x 12 1/2 in.

Carol Lowrey

In 2008, Spanierman Gallery published a catalogue featuring a selection of works on paper from the gallery’s holdings.  As a contributor, my assignments included writing an essay on Elizabeth Nourse’s View of the Luxembourg Gardens, Paris, a watercolor executed around 1905 when the artist was residing in a fourth-floor apartment at 80, rue d’Assas (pictured below), in the 6th Arrondissement.  For those of you not familiar with Nourse, she was born in Mount Healthy, a suburb of Cincinnati.  After attending art schools in the United States, she moved to Paris in 1887, studying briefly at the Académie Julian before being advised by her teacher, Gustave Boulanger, that she was so well ahead of others in the women’s class that she could better develop her skills on her own.  Nourse went on to paint intimate depictions of French and Dutch peasants, as well as portraits, flowers, landscapes and cityscapes, alternating between an academic realist manner and a looser, impressionist style depending on her subject.  She thrived in the French capital, distinguishing herself by becoming the first American woman elected an associate member of the recently established Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts (1895).  On the occasion of her death, a writer for the New York Times (10 October 1938) deemed her “one of the most distinguished artists in the American colony in Paris.” Read the rest of this entry »

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STILL DREAMING OF NORWAY (Part II) – Norwegian-born American Artist Jonas Lie

November 24, 2009 — Lisa N. Peters

Lisa N. Peters

Jonas Lie, Quiet Town, Norway

Jonas Lie, "Quiet Town, Norway," 1909, oil on canvas, 26 x 35 inches

I am following up on my earlier post on American artists in Norway, spurred by reading Sigrid Undset’s trilogy Kristin Lavransdatter (1920-22) and my husband Jerry’s visit to Norway.  In addition to John Singer Sargent and Willard Metcalf, some other American artists who went to Norway include William Trost Richards (1833-1905), who painted the Romsdalsfjord on Norway’s central coast; his daughter Anna Richards Brewster (1870-1952); and the German-born artist Hermann Herzog (1832–1932) who settled in America sometime between 1869 and 1871 (see picture at right).  Then, there are several Norwegian-born artists who immigrated to America, but kept ties with their homeland.  Among these are John Olson Hammerstad (1842-1925), Paul Lauritz (1889-1976), and, of course, Jonas Lie (1880-1940).

Born in the southern Norwegian town of Moss, Lie grew up near Oslo, moved when he was twelve to Paris, and a year later joined his family in New York, which would be his permanent home.  Read the rest of this entry »

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DREAMING OF NORWAY (Part I) – American Artists John Singer Sargent & Willard Metcalf

November 23, 2009 — Lisa N. Peters

Lisa N. Peters

John Singer Sargent, A Torrent in Norway

John Singer Sargent, "A Torrent in Norway," ca. 1901, oil on canvas, 22 3/8 x 29 3/4 inches, private collection

Lately Norway has been on my mind.  I recently read Sigrid Undset’s amazing, incredible trilogy Kristin Lavransdatter (1920-22; Undset won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1928), set in medieval Norway, and now my husband Jerry will be giving a talk at the Center for the Study of Mind in Nature in Oslo on November 25—the connection between the mind and nature in Norway makes sense!

Unfortunately I have not been to Norway, but I feel in a way that I have from reading Undset’s novels.  Here is a passage from the second book (The Wife), which describes Kristin’s arrival on the journey from her home in Jørundgård, in rural central Norway, to the northerly estate of her new husband (Erland) in Husaby, in Trøndelag:

They had reached Skaun. They were riding high up along the mountainside.  Beneath them, on the valley floor, the leafless forest stood white and furry with frost; it glittered in the sunlight, and there were glints from a little blue lake down below. Then they emerged from the evergreen grove.  Erland pointed ahead.  “There you can see Husaby, Kristin.  May God grant you many happy days there, my wife!” he said warmly.  (ll, 5, Tinna Nunnally translation, Penguin Books, 1999).

This takes place one third of the way through this epic tale of love, passion, heartbreak, self-examination, the struggle between impulse and restraint, and moments of happiness amid remorse, repentance, sorrow, and the unbounded emotions of parenthood.

The book has made me consider the connections that existed between American artists and Norway in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.  During this time, most American artists of stature went to Europe, but few seem to have ventured to Norway. Read the rest of this entry »

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Jasper Cropsey: Newly Arrived, Newly Considered

November 19, 2009 — Lisa N. Peters
Jasper Cropsey, Autumn Sunset

Jasper Cropsey (1823-1900), "Autumn Sunset," ca. 1870-75, oil on canvas, 23 x 34 inches

Lisa N. Peters

We have a new painting by the Hudson River School artist  Jasper Cropsey (1823-1900) at the gallery, entitled Autumn Sunset.  Art historian Kenneth W. Maddox (who is preparing the Cropsey catalogue raisonné for publication by the Newington-Cropsey Foundation) identifies the work as among Cropsey’s many views based on Greenwood Lake, in northern New Jersey, where the artist’s wife’s family had a home, and where Cropsey painted often from the 1840s through the 1890s.  The painting can be linked with a number of images Cropsey created of this site in the early 1870s.  A comparable work is Greenwood Lake, New Jersey of 1871, which belongs to the New York Historical Society. Read the rest of this entry »

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Charles Kaelin and The Aesthetic Appeal of Motif No. 1

October 15, 2009 — Spanierman Gallery, LLC
By Carol Lowrey
On a recent trip to Boston’s North Shore, I spent some time in Rockport, MA, described by the painter Harrison Cady as “the quaintest port on the entire New England coast.” For art historians––particularly those of us interested in American art colonies of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries––visits to locales in which our favorite artists painted are essential components of the research process, giving us greater insight into their choice of imagery and the myriad ways in which they responded to their immediate environment. With this in mind, I headed straight to Motif No. 1 (above), a small lobster shack on a stone jetty that juts out into the quiet waters of Rockport’s inner harbor. Located on Bearskin Neck, the structure is painted a deep red; its simple and unassuming but in terms of the artistic tradition of Cape Ann it has iconic significance, for it’s been said (by Cady, among others) to have been the subject of more paintings that any other building in America, attracting the brushes of artists and art students alike.*

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Musings on Paul de Longpré

October 7, 2009 — Spanierman Gallery, LLC
Carol Lowrey

During a recent visit to L.A., I happened to stay in West Hollywood, in a historic Art Deco hotel located on Sunset Boulevard. My accommodations were situated directly next door to William S. Hart Park, a small, hilly enclave that I wandered through one sunny morning. As I exited the south entrance, I came out on De Longpré Avenue, a quiet, crescent-shaped thoroughfare lined with low-rise apartment buildings surrounded by foliage and blossoms. The street name, of course, was easily recognizable to me, for it honors Paul de Longpré (1855-1911), a French-born watercolorist who specialized in the portrayal of flowers. Read the rest of this entry »

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William Glackens: Park at Gracie Square

October 6, 2009 — Spanierman Gallery, LLC
Katherine Bogden

When I first moved to New York in 2006 I lived in Yorkville, just a few blocks from Gracie Mansion. I frequently walked in the park there, which runs along the East River from 79th to 87th Streets. In fact, when I left the neighborhood, it was that park, called Carl Schurz Park, that I missed the most.

And so last year, during an exhibition at the gallery, I was pleased to assist the head of our research department, Lisa N. Peters, with research on William Glackens’s, Park at Gracie Square (Carl Schurz Park, New York). At first, we couldn’t understand the picture’s title. Could the park have once been called Gracie Square? Many phone calls and newspaper articles later, we found out the following information:

  • The park was established in 1887 as East End Park.
  • It was renamed in 1910 after Carl Schurz, a German immigrant who moved to New York in 1881 and became an important member of the New York community (he served as Secretary of the Interior under Rutherford B. Hayes).
  • Gracie Square, though not actually part of the park, is the name given to the street that runs along the southern end of the park. This picture shows a view of the park from Gracie Square.
  • The bridge, seen from afar in the drawing, spans the East River, near its junction with the Harlem River. This intersection was referred to as Hell Gate because of the dangerous currents created by the confluence. In 1917 the Hell Gate Bridge (formally the New York Connecting Railroad Bridge) was completed and is visible here.
While conducting our research, we also became aware of various other paintings William Glackens rendered of the park, including one other after the name change, which is presently in the White House Collection (for more see Peters’s entry in the Works on Paper exhibition catalogue).
Although the gallery’s photographer, who still lives in the area, kindly offered to search for the exact scene Glackens shows us here, she turned up empty-handed. It seems reasonable to me to assume the swings and benches were lost in one of the park’s transformations since the 1920s.
However, Glackens’s chalk and charcoal rendering certainly captures something more than just the physical elements of the park, for despite whatever conversions have occurred, the picture is immediately recognizable to me—I feel once again like a resident of Yorkville, out for an afternoon stroll.

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