ART & ARTISTS: 2013-01-06

Saturday, 12 January 2013

Ashcan School - Ernest Lawson part 1

Ernest Lawson by William Glackens 1910
oil on canvas 76.2 x 63.5 cm

Continuing the intermittent theme on the New York "Ashcan School" (see Introduction Oct 2012, William Glackens Oct 2012, Robert Henri Oct - Nov 2012, George Luks Nov 2012, Everett Shinn Nov 2012, George Bellows Dec 2012, John Sloan Dec 2012) the next artist I'm featuring is Ernest Lawson.

Ernest Lawson (1873 – 1939) a progressive artist and member of a group of artists called The Eight, achieved early recognition with his impressionist landscape paintings but later in life experienced personal tragedy and artistic isolation.

Born in Nova Scotia in 1873, Lawson studied at the Art Students League, New York, from 1891 to 1892 and took summer classes in Cos Cob, Connecticut, under J. Alden Weir and John Twachtman. Lawson’s early work has delicate tones and harmonious textures reminiscent of Twachtman’s style. While living in France from 1893 to 1896, Lawson briefly attended the Académie Julian. During this time, he met the Impressionist painter Alfred Sisley, an encounter that confirmed Lawson's love of painting outdoors, and his first success came when the Paris Salon accepted two paintings in 1894.

Returning to New York in 1898, Lawson concentrated on certain sites of upper Manhattan - their light, seasons, and times of day - a body of work that marked the height of his career. These characteristic works depicting the semi-industrial landscape of New York and the lower Hudson River employ thick impasto, strong contour lines, and areas of bold, yet harmonious colour to create highly structured compositions that appeared quite progressive at the time. They are often constructed of horizontal bands denoting land, water, and sky, while a delicate network of vertical lines creates foreground grasses and trees that reach past the middle ground toward a hazy horizon.

Lawson joined the rebellion against the National Academy of Design when his work was rejected in 1905 and through his friend William Glackens, became a member of The Eight, a group of American artists who were dedicated to challenging the dominance of the Academy. Lawson also participated in the Independent Artists exhibition in 1910 and the Armory Show in 1913. He won numerous awards including gold medals at the Pennsylvania Academy (1907) and Panama Pacific Exposition (1915). A year’s stay in Spain in 1916 with his wife and two daughters may have been the highlight of his private life, but financial troubles and bouts of alcoholism subsequently caused him to lose his family and many patrons. Impoverished and in ill health, Lawson accepted teaching positions in Kansas City and Colorado Springs during the 1920s. In 1936 he moved to Florida, where he died of an apparent heart attack in 1939.

This is part 1 of a 5-part post on the works of Ernest Lawson:

1891 Woodland Scene

1893c View of a Garden in a Paris Suburb
oil on canvas 74.3 x 82.5 cm

1894 Barges on the Seine
oil on canvas 63.5 x 76.2 cm

1894-1910c The Harlem River from High Bridge
oil on canvas 50.8 x 61 cm

1895 Moret-sur-Loing
oil on canvas 66 x 132.1 cm

1898 Canal Scene in Winter
oil on canvas 55.8 x 66 cm

c1898 Canal Scene In Winter

1899 River Scene in Winter
oil on canvas 76.2 x 76.2 cm

1900-10c Red Barns In Spring

1900 On the Hudson River
oil on canvas 36.8 x 43.2 cm

c1900 Spring Morning
oil on canvas 41 x 51.1 cm

1903-06c Spring
oil on canvas

1904 Morningside Heights
oil on canvas 87.9 x 103.2 cm

1905 Inwood on Hudson, in the Snow
oil on canvas 48.9 x 61 cm

1906 Aqueduct At Little Falls, New Jersey
oil on canvas 40.6 x 50.8 cm

1906 Farm Landscape

1906 Harlem River in Winter
oil on canvas 63.5 x 76.2 cm

1906 Excavation - Penn Station
oil on canvas 47 x 61.6 cm

c1906 By the River
oil on panel 57.1 x 74.9 cm

1907 Blue Night
oil on canvas 63.5 x 76.2 cm

1907 Floating Ice - Snow Bound Boats, Winter On The River

1907 Harlem River in Winter
oil on canvas 45.8 x 61.2 cm

1907 River in Winter
oil on canvas 50.8 x 61 cm

1907 Wet Night, Gramercy Park ( After Rain: Nocturne )
oil on canvas 66.6 x 73.6 cm

c1907 The Broken Fence, Spring Flood
oil on canvas 76.7 x 61.1 cm

1907-10 Winter Landscape, Washington Bridge
oil on canvas 45.8 x 61 cm

1907-10 Brooklyn Bridge
oil on canvas 51.8 x 61 cm

c1907 Ice in the River
oil on canvas 50.8 x 61 cm

c1908-10 Boys Bathing
oil on canvas 64.5 x 77 cm

1908 Ice on the Hudson
oil on canvas 83.8 x 101.6 cm

c1908-10 Summer Afternoon
oil on canvas 40.9 x 51.3 cm

c1908 An Abandoned Farm
oil on canvas 73.4 x 91.1 cm

1910 Harlem River, Winter
oil on canvas 101.6 x 127 cm

1910 Central Park
oil on canvas 61 x 71.1 cm

1910 High Bridge—Early Moon
oil on canvas 50.8 x 61 cm

1910 Nova Scotia, On The Harlem

1910 Spring Thaw

1910 Shadows, Spuyten Duyvil Hill

1910 Washington Bridge

1910 Winter, Connecticut

c1910 New York Street Scene
oil on canvas 81.6 x 60.96 cm

c1910-15 Dunwoodie, Upper New York
oil on canvas 51.7 x 61 cm

Thursday, 10 January 2013

Vincent van Gogh - Trees part 2

Vincent van Gogh painted at least 18 paintings of olive trees, mostly in Saint-Rémy in 1889. At his own request, he lived at an asylum there from May 1889 through May 1890 painting the gardens of the asylum and, when he had permission to venture outside its walls, nearby olive trees, cypresses and wheat fields:

"The effect of daylight and the sky means there are endless subjects to be found in olive trees. For myself I look for the contrasting effects in the foliage, which changes with the tones of the sky. At times, when the tree bares its pale blossoms and big blue flies, emerald fruit beetles and cicadas in great numbers fly about, everything is immersed in pure blue. Then, as the bronzer foliage takes on more mature tones, the sky is radiant and streaked with green and orange, and then again, further into autumn, the leaves take on violet tones something of the colour of a ripe fig, and this violet effect manifests itself most fully with the contrast of the large, whitening sun within its pale halo of light lemon. Sometimes, too, after a shower I've seen the whole sky pink and orange, which gave an exquisite value and colouring to the silvery grey-greens. And among all this were women, also pink, who were gathering the fruit.”

For earlier works see part 1 also.

This is part 2 of a 2-part post:

1889 Olive Grove, Orange Sky
oil on canvas 74 x 93 cm

1889 Olive Grove
oil on canvas 73 x 92 cm

1889 Olive Grove with Two Olive Pickers
oil on canvas 73 x 92 cm

1889 Olive Grove, Pale Blue Sky
oil on canvas 72.7 x 92.1 cm

Van Gogh painted three versions of women picking olives. The first, he described as an on-the-spot study "in deeper tones from nature".The second painting is "the most resolved and stylised of the three," and was intended for his sister and mother. The third, he painted in his studio in December in a "very discreet colour scheme.”

1889 Olive Pickers ( 1 December )
oil on canvas 73 x 92 cm

1889 Olive Pickers ( 2 December )
oil on canvas 72.4 x 89.9 cm

1889 Olive Picking
oil on canvas 73 x 92 cm

1889 Olive Trees ( September )
oil on canvas 53.5 x 64.5 cm

1889 Olive Trees against a Slope of a Hill
oil on canvas 33.5 x 40 cm

1889 Olive Trees with Yellow Sky and Sun
oil on canvas 73.7 x 92.7 cm

1889 Orchard in Bloom with Poplars
oil on canvas 72 x 92 cm

1889 Olive Trees
oil on canvas 51 x 65.2 cm

1889 Pine Trees against an Evening Sky
oil on canvas 92 x 73 cm

Of The Alpilles with Olive Trees in the Foreground Van Gogh wrote his brother Theo: "I did a landscape with olive trees and also a new study of a starry sky," calling this painting the daylight complement to the nocturnal, The Starry Night. His intention was to go beyond "the photographic and silly perfection of some painters" to an intensity born of colour and linear rhythms.


1889 The Alpilles with Olive Trees in the Foreground oil on canvas 72.5 x 92 cm

1889 Starry Night
oil on canvas 73 x 92 cm

1889 Study of Pine Trees
oil on canvas 46 x 51 cm

1889 The Garden of Saint-Paul Hospital
oil on canvas 95 x 75.5 cm

1889 The Garden of Saint-Paul Hospital
oil on canvas 64.5 x 49 cm

1889 The Garden of Saint-Paul Hospital with Figure
oil on canvas 61 x 50 cm

1889 The Garden of the Asylum in Saint-Remy
oil on canvas 73.5 x 92 cm

1889 The Garden of the Asylum in Saint-Remy
oil on canvas 71.5 x 90.5 cm

1889 The Grounds of the Asylum ( Saint-Remy )
oil on canvas 90.2 x 73.3 cm

1889 The Road Menders
oil on canvas 73.7 x 92 cm

1889 The Walk, Falling Leaves
oil on canvas 73.5 x 60.5 cm

1889 Trees in the Garden of Saint-Paul Hospital
oil on canvas 73 x 60 cm

1889 Two Poplars on a Hill
oil on canvas 61 x 45.5 cm

Van Gogh explored the grounds of the asylum where he found an overgrown garden. He wrote, "Since I have been here, I have had enough work with the overgrown garden with its large pine trees, under which there grows tall and poorly-tended grass, mixed with all kinds of periwinkle." The paintings are of growth below ivy-covered trees.

1889 Tree Trunks with Ivy
oil on canvas 45 x 60 cm

1889 Undergrowth with Ivy

1889 Undergrowth with Ivy
oil on canvas 45 x 60 cm

1889 Undergrowth with Ivy
oil on canvas 49 x 64 cm

Blossoming Almond Tree is one of Vincent van Gogh's best known paintings and is noteworthy in that both Van Gogh and his closest family held the work in high regard. This painting is one of a small handful that Van Gogh produced with a particular person in mind--in this case, his brother and sister-in-law's newborn baby. Van Gogh was deeply moved when Theo and Johanna chose to name the child Vincent and he always harboured a great deal of affection for the child. Van Gogh painted Blossoming Almond Tree to honour his namesake and it remains a tour-de-force, both the product of Vincent's fondness for his nephew as well as the Japanese art which he so greatly admired.