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A
SELECTION OF AUCTION HIGHLIGHTS
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HARRY LEITH-ROSS (1886-1973)
The landscape painter Harry Leith-Ross was born in Mauritius,
a British possession in the Indian Ocean, and came to the United
States around 1903. He worked as a commercial artist and in 1914
began to study at the Art Students League Summer School in Woodstock,
New York. Leith-Ross studied at the National Academy of Design
in New York City and went to Paris where he attended the Academie
Julien. Leith-Ross's reputation rests largely on the fact that
he was one of the third generation of American Impressionist artists
who worked in New Hope, a town on the Delaware River in Bucks
County, Pennsylvania. He was also a noted art teacher and taught
in New Hope and other American art colonies, such as Rockport
and Gloucester in Massachusetts and at the Art Students League
Summer School in Woodstock, New York. His book, The Landscape
Painter's Manual, was published in 1956.
March Thaw is an unusually fine example of a subject that
greatly appealed to the New Hope landscape painters, the winter
snow scene. This example reflects the influence of Edward Willis
Redfield, who was one of the most famous members of art colony.
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Harry
Leith-Ross
1886-1973
MARCH THAW
Signed Leith-Ross (ll), also titled and inscribed with artist's
name on the stretcher
Oil on canvas
32 x 34 inches
Estimate: $70,000-90,000
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JOHN
FULTON FOLLINSBEE (1892-1972)
The landscape painter John Fulton Folinsbee was born in Buffalo,
New York, and studied at the Art Students League in New York City.
He became one of the leading Impressionist painters who was associated
with the artists' colony in New Hope in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.
Folinsbee first went to the small town on the Delaware River in
1916 at the suggestion of his teacher, the tonalist painter, Birge
Harrison. He went on to win numerous prestigious awards and was
elected an academician of the National Academy of Design in 1928.
Folinsbee's works are in the permanent collections of the Corcoran
Gallery of Art and the Phillips Collection in Washington DC, the
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia, and the
National Academy of Design.
Folinsbee probably painted this impressionist bird's-eye view
when he visited France in 1926. It represents the historic village
of Bourre in the Loire Valley, overlooking the picturesque Cher
valley. Folinsbee's palette darkened and his work became more
expressionistic after he returned to the United States and worked
in Maine.
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John
Fulton Folinsbee
1892-1972
BOURRE VALLEY, circa 1926
Signed John Folinsbee (lr) and titled on the stretcher
Oil on canvas
32 x 40 inches
Estimate: $60,000-80,000
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HERMANN
HERZOG (1832-1932)
The prolific landscape painter Hermann Herzog was born in Bremen,
Germany. In 1848 he enrolled at the Dusseldorf Academy and later
took private lessons from the Norwegian painter Hans Frederick
Gude. The dramatic mountainous landscapes that he painted after
a visit to Norway in 1855 brought him great critical acclaim and
international success, and he enjoyed the patronage of European
royalty and nobility. To escape the Prussian invasion of Bremen,
he immigrated to the United States around 1871 and settled in
Philadelphia. Over the next sixty years, Herzog traveled widely
throughout the United States in search of spectacular scenery.
By 1880, he had achieved financial independence through profitable
investments the Pennsylvania Railroad, and for the remainder of
his long career, he painted strictly for pleasure and declined
to sell his works.
Although a list of 1,000 of Herzog's paintings was made early
in the twentieth century, the subjects and dates of his works
are extremely difficult to identify unless they represent specific
landmarks. The poetic, contemplative quality and free handling
of paint in the large and impressive Landscape with Woman Driving
Geese are typical of the artist's late style and reflect the
influence of French Barbizon painters. Although the woman with
the geese has a distinctly European character, the landscape details
were probably based on the artist's many sketches of the Pennsylvania
countryside.
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Hermann
Herzog
1832-1932
LANDSCAPE WITH WOMAN DRIVING GEESE
Signed H. Herzog (ll)
Oil on canvas
40 1/4 x 60 1/4 inches
Estimate: $50,000-70,000
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CHARLES
WEBSTER HAWTHORNE (1872-1930)
The noted portraitist and art teacher Charles Webster Hawthorne
was raised in Richmond, Maine, the son of a sea captain. He went
to New York in 1890 and worked in a stained glass factory while
taking evening classes at the Art Students League. He attended
William Merritt Chase's Shinnecock Summer School in 1896, and
the following year, became Chase's assistant. Hawthorne embarked
on a long, influential career as an art teacher when he helped
to found the Chase School (later called the New York School of
Art). After spending a year in Holland, he established the Cape
Cod School of Art in Provincetown, Massachusetts, in 1899. Under
his leadership it developed into one of the nation's leading art
schools and attracted students who later became famous artists.
Hawthorne exhibited widely and won many awards. He was a member
of the Salmagundi Club, the American Watercolor Society, and was
elected to the French SociÈtÈ Nationale des Beaux-Arts
in 1913.
Although Hawthorne is often characterized as an exponent of academic
realism, he was concerned with the transient effects of light
and painted in a conservative impressionist style. Italian
Girl is a highly representative example of the quiet, introspective,
style of portraiture for which he is famous. Also included in
the auction are two of Hawthorne's Italian views that date from
circa 1929.
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Charles
Webster Hawthorne
1872-1930
THE ITALIAN GIRL
Signed C.W. Hawthorne (ll)
Oil on panel
20 x 16 inches
Provenance:
Moro Galleries, New York, 1973.
Estimate: $20,000-30,000
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RICHARD
HENRY FULLER (1822-1871)
The landscape painter Richard Henry Fuller was born in Bradford,
New Hampshire. He was orphaned at the age of seven and moved to
Boston, Massachusetts, in 1840. He later moved to Chelsea and
earned a living making cigars until his health started to fail
in 1854. After spending two years in Minnesota, he returned to
Chelsea, became a police officer, and painted in his spare time.
Although it is generally assumed that Fuller was self-taught,
he may have received some instruction from a minor landscape painter
who was active in Boston during the late 1850s. He became highly
proficient at painting panoramic views of the landscape around
Boston that are often peopled by diminutive human figures and
domestic animals. Fuller exhibited at the Boston Athenaeum and
the Boston Art Club, and the noted artist William Morris Hunt
owned one of his landscapes. Fuller died at 49, reputedly from
the effects of overwork.
The well-preserved Landscape with Figures, with its subtle
atmospheric gradations and skillfully delineated trees, probably
dates from the middle to late 1860s. It is closely related to
two landscapes by Fuller in the permanent collection of the Museum
of Fine Arts, Boston.
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Richard
Henry Fuller
1822-1871
LANDSCAPE WITH FIGURES
Signed R.H. Fuller (ll)
Oil on canvas
18 x 28 1/8 inches
Provenance:
William Vareika Fine Arts, Newport, Rhode Island
Estimate: $12,000-14,000
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JEAN
McLANE (1878-1964)
The portrait and figure painter Jean McLane was born in Chicago
and studied art with John Vanderpoel at the Art Institute of Chicago
and with Frank Duveneck in Cincinnati, Ohio, before moving to
New York City around the turn of the century to study with William
Merritt Chase. She and her husband, the portraitist John C. Johansen,
helped found the National Foundation of Portrait Painters in 1912.
The couple summered in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, and frequently
traveled to Europe. McLane, who was elected an academician of
the National Academy of Design in 1926, was also a member of the
National Institute of Arts and Letters, the National Association
of Portrait Painters, and the American Watercolor Club. She was
one among a number of portraitists who was commissioned to depict
the Allied Leaders from World War I, and her portrait of Queen
Elisabeth of Belgium is now in the National Museum of American
Art in Washington, DC. McLane's work is also represented in the
Art Institute of Chicago and the San Antonio Museum in Texas.
McLane was especially noted for her portraits of women and children,
but she was also adept at painting other subjects. Fountain in
a City Square probably represents a site in Paris. This painting
was included in the Berkshire Museum's July Retrospective of
Jean McLane in 1979.
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Jean
MacLane (McLane)
1878-1964
LION FOUNTAIN IN A PARIS SQUARE (SPOT OF SUNLIGHT)
Inscribed indistinctly on the reverse Fountain, Paris 1906/Painted
by my mother/Jean MacLane/Signed...Washington
Oil on canvas
32 1/4 x 25 1/8 inches
Provenance:
Robert M. Hicklin, Jr., Inc., Spartanburg, South Carolina
Exhibited:
Chicago, Art Institute of Chicago, 1904, no.288 (possibly)
Pittsfield, Massachusetts, Berkshire Museum, Retrospective of
Jean McLane, July 1979
Estimate: $15,000-25,000
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