Hezekiah Anthony Dyer

“A Norman Peasant’s Home”

Circa 1925

Here for your consideration is a well executed watercolor and gouache painting by the American artist, James Milton Sessions. Signed lower right. Circa 1955. The landscape is of a Novia Scotia pastoral landscape. Here you see horses grazing and two men fishing nearby. The watercolor is in excellent original condition and is beautifully double matted and framed in a thin gold leaf gallery frame in fine condition. Overall framed measurement 16 by 18.25 inches. James Milton Sessions (born September 20, 1882 in Rome, NY) received his initial exposure to art from his mother, who was an accomplished artist. He trained at the Art Institute of Chicago from 1903–1906 and initially supported himself as a wheelsman aboard Great Lakes ships from 1906–1914, later serving in the Illinois Naval Reserve during World War I. He also worked as a commercial illustrator. He was a master watercolorist of marine, sporting, and military World War II scenes. He developed a love of the sea and is probably best known as a painter of marine subjects. Sessions painted images of numerous locations, from the Bahamas to New England's busy fishing harbors, north to the raw fishing grounds of Nova Scotia, and ultimately to the Navajo reservations in New Mexico. Not only do his works document important World War II historical events, they visually portray and convey the spirit of the American fighting forces in both the Pacific and European campaigns, commencing with the bombing of Pearl Harbor, followed by D-Day Europe through to the final phases of the Pacific war, such as Jimmy Doolittle's daylight bombing raids of the Japanese mainland to the unconditional surrender of the Japanese military. The Chicago Tribune newspaper utilized his talents and Sessions is considered to be the greatest "brush reporter" of World War II. His works can be found in Presidential collections, numerous important corporate collections and military establishments throughout the country. Sessions created numerous wartime advertisements. Examples are a 1943 Willys Jeep ad showing the Coast Guard at Guadalcanal, and a Borg-Warner ad in 1945 showing the mass production of radiators and clutches for motorized warfare manufactured in Detroit. His work is highly collectible in the field of Militaria/WWII/1939-1945. In 1962 the New York Graphic Society commissioned him to make four paintings, reproductions of which were distributed as part of the Society's Works of Masters Group. Many of his other paintings have been reproduced over the years, issued as posters and as high quality reprints on watercolor paper. Sessions was married in Chicago, Illinois in 1946 to Chrysanthy G. Deamanthopulos. Although very prolific in the style of John Whorf and Ogden Pleissner...

The artwork is double matted with an antique style contemporary gold leaf gallery frame in fine condition. Overall framed measurements are 24 by 31 inches. Provenance: A Sarasota, Florida collector. Guy de Neyrac was born in France in 1900 and is widely known for his impressionistic watercolor and pen drawings of Paris...

La Baie des Anges a Nice et le Casino is a lovely gouache on paper from 1928. The work is fully authenticated by Fanny Guillon-Laffaille and is listed in the Raoul Dufy Catalogue Rai...

Signed lower right, 'M. Backman' for Muriel Backman (American, 1902-1996); additionally signed verso, titled 'Pt. Pinos' and dated 1953. A bright and fresh watercolor showing a view...