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Charles De Wolf Brownell
Pumpkin Vine Watercolor Painting 19th C. American Artist Charles DeWolf Brownell

1868

About the Item

Charles De Wolf Brownell (American, 1822 - 1909) Watercolor on paper depicting a pumpkin on a flowering vine Hand dated and inscribed "Lyme - Oct. 8 68" Measures 5 1/4" x 8 1/2" on paper, matted to 9" x 11 3/4" Provenance: Babcock Galleries. (also bearing label from Michael Borghi Fine Art) Charles DeWolf Brownell (1822 – 1909) An American landscape painter influenced by the works of Frederic E. Church and other mid-19th century American landscape painters. A resident of East Hartford, Connecticut from 1824 to 1860, New York City from 1860 to 1865, and Bristol, Rhode Island from 1878 until his death in 1909, Charles Brownell was born in Providence, Rhode Island. He became known for his landscape and still life paintings, especially a work titled Connecticut Charter Oak. He studied and practiced law in Hartford from 1850 to 1853, when, at age 31, he turned his attention to the arts, never returning to law. In 1853, he gave up a law career to devote himself to landscape painting, and studied in Hartford with Julius Theodore Bush and Joseph Ropes and exhibited at the National Academy of Design. He also spent seven consecutive winters painting tropical scenery in Cuba. He lived in Europe from 1866 to 1872. For many years he kept a strange diary in English words written in the Greek alphabet. Brownell traveled extensively over the course of his career. Brownell was fascinated by the natural world and spent his career traveling throughout New England in the summers and spending winters on the island of Cuba, and other tropical locals. He may have been influenced by the writings of the German naturalist and explorer Alexander Von Humboldt (1769-1859), who, among many influential writings, published The Island of Cuba which was translated into English in 1856, and included a chapter on Von Humboldt’s abhorrence of slavery. Before he embarked on his career as a landscape artist, Brownell published The Indian Races of North and South America, (1853), an illustrated account of the native american populations. One of Brownell’s most important contributions to the American landscape movement is his body of landscapes of the island of Cuba, where he was likely drawn by his family’s extensive holdings in numerous sugar and coffee plantations on the island, and where he stayed during his time there. He would winter on the island from 1853 to 1866, producing a comprehensive body of works composed of drawings, watercolors, oil studies and finished oil paintings. His Cuba paintings follow the tradition of en plein air painting that Thomas Cole first embraced during his European travels from 1829 to 1832, when he encountered these works by British artists John Constable and J. M. W. Turner, and the myriad European artists working in Italy at the time of his journey. Cole’s student Frederic Edwin Church would learn this artistic practice from his teacher Cole, and became a master of the plein air oil study in America and during his extensive travels in South America and other tropical locations. In New York, Brownell became acquainted with a number of the artists associated with the Hudson River School, including John F. Kensett, Thomas P. Rossiter, and Frederic Edwin Church. Charles De Wolf Brownell exhibited in New York at such institutions as the National Academy of Design, in 1861–62 and 1864–65, and at the Brooklyn Art Association, in 1863. DeWolfe Brownell seems to have stopped exhibiting after 1865. Brownell travelled extensively until the last years of his life. In the 1880s, he traveled throughout the Caribbean, including the islands of St. Kitts, Antigua, Martinique, St. Croix, Barbados, Grenada, and Trinidad, and in 1888 he made a visit to Church at Olana, Church’s famous estate in Hudson, New York. In the 1890s, Brownell made a return trip to Cuba, his first since 1866, and voyaged to Mexico, Jamaica, Venezuela, and Chile.
  • Creator:
  • Creation Year:
    1868
  • Dimensions:
    Height: 9 in (22.86 cm)Width: 11.75 in (29.85 cm)
  • Medium:
  • Movement & Style:
  • Period:
  • Condition:
    good. mat has light wear.
  • Gallery Location:
    Surfside, FL
  • Reference Number:
    1stDibs: LU38210308422

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Lighthearted Illustration of Outdoor Pursuits This one being cross country hiking signed "W. Steig" Provenance: from Mrs. Joseph B. Ryan, Commissioned by Joe Ryan for the bar at his ski resort, Mount Tremblant Lodge, in 1938. Mont Tremblant, P.Q., Canada Watercolor and ink on illustration board, sights sizes 8 1/2 x 16 1/2 in., framed. In 1938 Joe Ryan, described as a millionaire from Philadelphia, bushwhacked his way to the summit of Mont Tremblant and was inspired to create a world class ski resort at the site. In 1939 he opened the Mont Tremblant Lodge, which remains part of the Pedestrian Village today. This original illustration is on Whatman Illustration board. the board measures 14 X 22 inches. label from McClees Galleries, Philadelphia, on the frame backing paper. William Steig, 1907 – 2003 was an American cartoonist, sculptor, and, in his later life, an illustrator and writer of children's books. Best known for the picture books Sylvester and the Magic Pebble, Abel's Island, and Doctor De Soto, he was also the creator of Shrek!, which inspired the film series of the same name. He was the U.S. nominee for both of the biennial, international Hans Christian Andersen Awards, as a children's book illustrator in 1982 and a writer in 1988. Steig was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1907, and grew up in the Bronx. His parents were Polish-Jewish immigrants from Austria, both socialists. His father, Joseph Steig, was a house painter, and his mother, Laura Ebel Steig, was a seamstress who encouraged his artistic leanings. As a child, he dabbled in painting and was an avid reader of literature. Among other works, he was said to have been especially fascinated by Pinocchio.He graduated from Townsend Harris High School at 15 but never completed college, though he attended three, spending two years at City College of New York, three years at the National Academy of Design and a mere five days at the Yale School of Fine Arts before dropping out of each. Hailed as the "King of Cartoons" Steig began drawing illustrations and cartoons for The New Yorker in 1930, producing more than 2,600 drawings and 117 covers for the magazine. Steig, later, when he was 61, began writing children's books. In 1968, he wrote his first children's book. He excelled here as well, and his third book, Sylvester and the Magic Pebble (1969), won the Caldecott Medal. He went on to write more than 30 children's books, including the Doctor DeSoto series, and he continued to write into his nineties. Among his other well-known works, the picture book Shrek! (1990) formed the basis for the DreamWorks Animation film Shrek (2001). After the release of Shrek 2 in 2004, Steig became the first sole-creator of an animated movie franchise that went on to generate over $1 billion from theatrical and ancillary markets after only one sequel. Along with Maurice Sendak, Saul Steinberg, Ludwig Bemelmans and Laurent de Brunhofff his is one of those rare cartoonist whose works form part of our collective cultural heritage. In 1984, Steig's film adaptation of Doctor DeSoto directed by Michael Sporn was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film. As one of the most admired cartoonists of all time, Steig spent seven decades drawing for the New Yorker magazine. He touched generations of readers with his tongue–in–cheek pen–and–ink drawings, which often expressed states of mind like shame, embarrassment or anger. Later in life, Steig turned to children's books, working as both a writer and illustrator. Steig's children's books were also wildly popular because of the crazy, complicated language he used—words like lunatic, palsied, sequestration, and cleave. Kids love the sound of those words even if they do not quite understand the meaning. Steig's descriptions were also clever. He once described a beached whale as "breaded with sand." Throughout the course of his career, Steig compiled his cartoons and drawings into books. Some of them were published first in the New Yorker. Others were deemed too dark to be printed there. Most of these collections centered on the cold, dark psychoanalytical truth about relationships. They featured husbands and wives fighting and parents snapping at their kids. His first adult book, Man About Town, was published in 1932, followed by About People, published in 1939, which focused on social outsiders. Sick of Each Other, published in 2000, included a drawing depicting a wife holding her husband at gunpoint, saying, "Say you adore me." According to the Los Angeles Times, fellow New Yorker artist Edward Sorel...
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