ART & ARTISTS: 2012-01-08

Saturday, 14 January 2012

Julian Alden Weir - part 3 - prints

This is part 3 of a 3 part post on the works of American artist Julian Alden Weir (1852-1919). For biographical notes on Weir and more works see parts 1 - 2.

1887 The Barn Lot
etching and drypoint 19 x 26 cm

c1887-93 Portrait of Miss Ross
drypoint 19 x 13 cm

c1887-93 Dutch Schnapps
drypoint 13 x 10 cm

c1887-93 Kitchen Well
drypoint 19 x 13 cm

c1887-93 On the Piazza
drypoint 10 x 13 cm

c1887-93 Portrait of a Woman
drypoint 24 x 16 cm

c1887-93 Portrait of Miss Hoe
drypoint 26 x 16 cm

c1887-93 Profile Portrait of a Woman Sewing
lithograph and chine-colle 31 x 23 cm

c1887-93 The Blacksmith's Shop
etching and drypoint 28 x 20 cm

c1887-93 The Farm
etching 6 x 10cm

c1887-93 The Stone Bridge
etching 10 x 15 cm

c1887-93 The Wooden Bridge
etching 13 x 18 cm

1888 Mother and Infant
etching 17 x 26 cm

1889 Boats at Erin - Isle of Man
etching 10 x 15 cm

1889 Manx Cats - Isle of Man
etching 10 x 14 cm

1889 On the Porch
drypoint 12 x 10 cm

1889 Port Erin - Isle of Man
etching 9 x 14 cm

1890 My Back Yard No.1
etching and drypoint 20 x 15 cm

1890 My Back Yard No.2
etching 20 x 15 cm

1890 Portrait of John F Weir
drypoint 20 x 15 cm

1891 Portrait of Dr. Robert F Weir
drypoint 30 x 20 cm

1891 The Carpenter's Shop
etching 20 x 15 cm

Thursday, 12 January 2012

Julian Alden Weir - part 2

This is part 2 of a 3 part post on the works of American artist Julian Alden Weir (1852-1919). For biographical notes on Weir and more works see part 1. Part 3 will take a look at Weir's rather good prints.

1900 The Veranda
oil on canvas 64 x 76 cm

after 1900 Landscape
oil on wood 61 x 40 cm

1903 The Birches
oil on canvas 86 x 69 cm

c1903 After the Ride
oil on canvas 62 x 86 cm

1904 New England Barnyard
oil on canvas 51 x 61 cm

c1905-15 Ravine near Branchville
oil on canvas 64 x 77 cm

c1905 Upland Pasture
oil on canvas 101 x 128 cm

1906 A Gentlewoman
oil on canvas 76 x 64 cm

c1907-8 The Peacock Feather
oil on canvas 76 x 64 cm

c1907 Pan and the Wolf
oil on canvas 86 x 62 cm

1908 The Building of the Dam
oil on canvas 76 x 102 cm

c1908-9 Afternoon by the Pond
oil on canvas 64 x 76 cm canvas

c1909 On the Shore
oil on canvas 64 x 76 cm

1910 The Bridge, Nocturne
oil on canvas 74 x 100 cm

c1910-1919 The Lute Player
oil on canvas 85 x 59 cm

c1910-1919 Woodland Rocks
oil on canvas 71 x 91 cm

1911 The Plaza, Nocturne
oil on canvas 74 x 100 cm

c1913-14 Windham Village
oil on panel 64 x 76 cm

c1913 Fall Pasture
oil on canvas 76 x 64 cm

1918 Knitting for Soldiers
oil on canvas 76 x 64 cm

1919 The Letter

Hunter and Dogs
oil on canvas 92 x 82 cm

Landscape
oil on canvas 95 x 83 cm

Tuesday, 10 January 2012

Julian Alden Weir - part 1

In my recent post on American artist John Henry Twachtman I mentioned that he was a close friend of fellow artist Julian Alden Weir (1852 – 1919), another member of the Cos Cob Art Colony near Greenwich, Connecticut. Weir was also one of “The Ten,” a loosely-allied group of American artists dissatisfied with professional art organizations, who banded together in 1898 to exhibit their works as a stylistically-unified group.

Weir was born and raised in West Point, New York, the son of painter Robert Walter Weir, a professor of drawing at the Military Academy at West Point. His older brother, John Ferguson Weir, also became a well-known landscape artist who also painted in the styles of the Hudson River and Barbizon schools.

Julian Weir attended the National Academy of Design in the early 1870s before enrolling at the École des Beaux-Arts, Paris in 1873. Weir also encountered impressionism for the first time, and reacted strongly: "I never in my life saw more horrible things...They do not observe drawing nor form but give you an impression of what they call nature. It was worse than the Chamber of Horrors."

Weir met James McNeill Whistler in London before returning to New York City in 1877. His works as a young artist centered on still life and the human figure. In the 1880s Weir moved to rural Ridgefield, Connecticut and became a good friend of artists John Henry Twachtman and Albert Pinkham Ryder. The art of Weir and Twachtman was especially well-aligned, and the two sometimes painted and exhibited together - both taught at the Art Students League. Weir was also close friends with the still life and landscape painter Emil Carlsen who spent summers with Weir on his farm, before purchasing his own home in Falls River, Connecticut.

By 1891 Weir had reconciled his earlier misgivings about impressionism and adopted the style as his own. Through the remainder of the 1890s and 20th century Weir painted impressionist landscapes and figurative works, many of which centred on his Connecticut farms at Branchville and Windham. He also became skilled at etching (see part 3 coming up).

In 1912 Weir was selected the first president of the Association of American Painters and Sculptors, but resigned a year later following the association's sponsorship of the modernist Armory Show, Weir later became president of the National Academy of Design. He died in 1919.