ART & ARTISTS

Tuesday, 26 June 2012

Thomas Pollock Anshutz - part 1

Thomas Pollock Anshutz (1851 – 1912) was an American painter and teacher. He was the co-founder of The Darby School and leader at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Anshutz was known for his award winning portraiture work and for his working friendship with Thomas Eakins.

Anshutz was born in Newport, Kentucky in 1851. He grew up in Newport and Wheeling, West Virginia. His early art instruction took place at the National Academy of Design in the early 1870s, where he studied under Lemuel Wilmarth. In 1875 he moved to Philadelphia and took a class taught by Thomas Eakins at the Philadelphia Sketch Club, a class which would solidify a close relationship and influence between Eakins and Anshutz.

In 1878 Anshutz became Eakins assistant, eventually replacing Eakins as Chief Demonstrator when Eakins became Professor of Drawing and Painting. In 1880 he completed his first major work, The Ironworker's Noontime, (1880) while still a student. Eakins was dismissed from his position in 1886 and Anshutz took over as art instruction leader at the Academy. Anshutz would briefly travel to Europe, focusing primarily on his teaching in Philadelphia. Numerous artists studied under Anshutz, including George Luks, Charles Demuth, John Sloan, Charles Sheeler, Everett Shinn, John Marin, William Glackens, and Robert Henri.

In 1892 Anshutz married Effie Shriver Russell. The two spent their honeymoon in Paris, where Anshutz attended classes at Académie Julian. In 1893 they returned to Philadelphia. The Anshutz family regularly vacationed in Holly Beach, New Jersey which served as a creative place for the painter. There he experimented with watercolours, bright colour palette, and simple compositions. He also photographed the natural environment, utilizing the images as studies for paintings, specifically Holly Beach and trips down the Delaware and Maurice rivers.

Although Anshutz experimented persistently with landscape painting, he was more well known for his portraiture, which won him numerous awards in the 1890s and 1900s. In 1898 he and Hugh Breckenridge co-founded the Darby School, a summer school outside of Philadelphia which emphasized plein air painting. At Darby Anshutz created his most abstract works, a series of bright oil landscape paintings that were never exhibited. He continued to participate at Darby until 1910. He served as a member of the National Academy of Design and president of the Philadelphia Sketch Club. He retired from teaching in the autumn of 1911 due to poor health and died in June1912.

This is part 1 of a 2-part post on Anshutz:

1879 The Farmer and His Son at Harvesting
43.6 x 61.6 cm

1879 The Way They Live
oil on canvas 61 x 43.2 cm


1880 Boys with a Boat, Ohio River, near Wheeling, West Virginia cyanotype 14.6 x 22.2 cm

The above photograph was clearly the main reference for two versions of a paintings done a little later:

1898 Steamboat on the Ohio

c1900 Steamboat on the Ohio
oil on canvas 38 x 25 cm

1880 Factory - Study for Ironworkers ( below ), Noontime
oil on paperboard 21.4 x 32.7 cm

1880 The Ironworker's Noontime
oil on canvas 43.2 x 61 cm

c1885 Landscape with Tree
oil on academy board 14.8 x 20.5 cm

1888 The Chore
oil on canvas 25 x 35.7 cm

c1890 Lady by a Window
watercolour 38 x 70.8 cm

c1891 A Studio Study
oil on canvas 56 x 91.7 cm

after 1892 House and Tree ( The Artist's House )
oil on paperboard 20 x 26.4 cm

1893 Portrait of Mrs. Anschutz
pastel on paper 50.8 x 66.04 cm

c1893 St. Cloud near Paris
watercolour 21 x 26.7 cm

1894 Near Cape May
watercolour on paper 25.4 x 36.6 cm

1894 Untitled ( Man in Boat )
graphite and watercolour on paper 22.4 x 32.9 cm

c1894 Untitled ( A Beach Scene )
watercolour on paper 17.1 x 24 cm

c1895 Checker Players
oil on canvas 40.8 x 51 cm

c1897 On the Delaware at Tacony
oil on canvas 58.7 x 40.96 cm

c1897 The Lumber Boat
oil on canvas 61.3 x 41.3 cm

c1898 Boat in the Port
oil on canvas 94 x 66 cm

c1900 Boy Reading, Ned Anshutz
oil on canvas 96.7 x 68.8 cm

c1900 The Summer House
watercolour

c1905 The Incense Burner ( Rebecca H. Whelan )
oil on canvas 162.6 x 101.6 cm

c1905 Woman Writing at a Table
oil on canvas 51.4 x 40.6 cm

1907 A Rose
oil on canvas 147.3 x 11.4 cm

1907 Indian on the Ohio
oil on canvas 54.6 x76.8 cm

c1908 A Study in Scarlet, Portrait of Katherine Rice
pastel on canvas 86.4 x 76.2 cm

Sunday, 24 June 2012

Artists at Étretat, France - part 2

Étretat is a commune in the Seine-Maritime department in the Haute-Normandie region in northern France. It’s best known for its cliffs which have famous natural arches formed into them. These cliffs and the associated resort beach attracted artists including Eugène Delacroix (1798 – 1863), Gustave Courbet (1819 – 1877), Eugène Boudin (1824 – 1898) and Claude Monet (1840 – 1926), and were featured prominently in the 1909 Arsène Lupin novel The Hollow Needle by Maurice Leblanc.

Part 1 of this post features the Étretat works of Delacroix, Corbet, and Boudin. Part 2 features the Étretat works of Monet.

Claude Monet

Claude Monet (1840 – 1926) was the original founder and practitioner of the French Impressionist movement in painting. Some of his best-known works include Impression, Sunrise (for which the movement was named), the Water Lilies series, and the Haystacks series.

During the 1880s, Monet rediscovered the Normandy coast and made repeated visits there to draw by the sea. Étretat had already been painted by both Delacroix and Courbet; Monet in fact owned a Delacroix watercolour of the area. The Courbet retrospective at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in 1882 featured a group of Étretat seascapes. Monet visited Étretat in 1883 with plans to create his own Normandy seascapes: “I reckon on doing a big canvas on the cliff of Étretat, although it’s terribly audacious of me to do that after Courbet who did it so well, but I’ll try to do it differently.” The region had become a fashionable holiday destination for Parisians, which may have encouraged Monet to create paintings for a growing market.

In the 1890s, Monet began producing his series paintings: multiple images of the same subject done at different times of day and captured in different kinds of light. In the 1880s, Monet painted and drew the coast north of Le Havre at Étretat repeatedly, and the body of work he produced shows that he was already thinking in terms of repeated representations of the same subject. Some of the pieces shown here are in pastel, a medium that enabled Monet to note down ideas for composition and colour with speed.

1873 The Porte d'Amont, Étretat
oil on canvas

1883 Étretat, Rough Sea
oil on canvas

1883 Étretat, Sunset
oil on canvas

1883 The Cliff at Étretat
oil on canvas

1883 The Manneport, Étretat
oil on canvas

1883 The Manneport, Seen from Below
oil on canvas 72 x 91 cm

1883 The Needle of Étretat, Low Tide
oil on canvas 60 x 81 cm

1885 Étretat, the Aval Cliff, the Effect of the Sun
oil on canvas 60 x 73 cm

1885 Étretat, the Porte d'Aval
oil on canvas 60 x 81 cm

1885 The Manneport at High Tide
oil on canvas 165.1 x 205.7 cm

1885 The Manneport Seen from the East
oil on canvas 166.4 x 206.5 cm

1885 The Rock Needle and the Porte d'Aval
oil on canvas 165.1 x 81 cm

1885 The Rock Needle Seen through the Porte d'Aumont
oil on canvas 185.4 x 152.4 cm

1885-86 Étretat in the Rain
oil on canvas 142.2 x 209.6 cm

1885-86 The Rock Needle Seen through the Porte d'Aval
oil on canvas 73 x 92 cm

c1885 Étretat, the Port d'Aval, Fishing Boats leaving the Harbour
oil on wood

1885c Étretat, The Arch, and the Aval Cliff
pastel 21 x 37 cm cm

c1885 Étretat, the Manneporte at Low Tide
pastel 23 x 33 cm

c1885 Étretat, the Needle Rock and Porte d'Aval
pastel 40 x 23.5 cm

Étretat, Beach and Falaise d'Aval
oil on canvas

Étretat, The End of the Day
oil on canvas

Étretat, the Manneporte Reflected on Water
oil on canvas

Friday, 22 June 2012

Artists at Étretat, France - part 1

I have visited Étretat more than once, and find it a magical place. You are instantly drawn to the beach and it's extraordinary topography. Étretat is a commune in the Seine-Maritime department in the Haute-Normandie region in northern France. It’s best known for its cliffs which have famous natural arches formed into them. These cliffs and the associated resort beach attracted artists including Eugène Delacroix (1798 – 1863), Gustave Courbet (1819 – 1877), Eugène Boudin (1824 – 1898) and Claude Monet (1840 – 1926), and were featured prominently in the 1909 Arsène Lupin novel The Hollow Needle by Maurice Leblanc.

Part 1 of this post will feature the Étretat works of Delacroix, Corbet, and Boudin. Part 2 will feature the Étretat works of Monet.

Two of the three famous arches seen from the town are the Porte d'Aval, and the Porte d'Amont. The Manneporte is the third which cannot be seen from the town.

Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix (1798 – 1863) was a French Romantic artist regarded from the outset of his career as the leader of the French Romantic school. Delacroix's use of expressive brushstrokes and his study of the optical effects of colour profoundly shaped the work of the Impressionists, while his passion for the exotic inspired the artists of the Symbolist movement. Some see him as the link between the classic style of the old masters and the modern movements that arose in the 19th century.

1838 The Pied du Cheval, Étretat

c1859 Cliff at Étretat

Falaises d'Étretat

The Porte d'Amont, Étretat
pastel 15.7 x 20.6 cm

Étretat

Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet (1819 – 1877) was a French painter who led the Realist movement in 19th-century French painting. The Realist movement bridged the Romantic movement (characterised by the paintings of Théodore Géricault and Eugène Delacroix) with the Barbizon School and the Impressionists. Courbet occupies an important place in 19th century French painting as an innovator and as an artist willing to make bold social commentary in his work.

1866 The Cliffs at Étretat

1869 Boats on a Beach, Étretat

1869 The Cliff at Étretat, the Porte d'Aval
oil on canvas

1869 The Sea-Arch at Étretat
oil on canvas 79 x 128 cm

1869-70 The Cliff at Étretat after the Storm
oil on canvas

c1869 Bay with Cliffs
oil on canvas

1870 Cliffs at Étretat
oil on canvas 66 x 82 cm

Cliff at Étretat

Eugène Boudin (1824 – 1898) was one of the first French landscape painters to paint outdoors. Boudin was a marine painter, and expert in the rendering of all that goes upon the sea and along its shores. His pastels, summary and economic, garnered the splendid eulogy of Baudelaire, and Corot who, gazing at his pictures, said to him, "You are the master of the sky."