William Steiger

Brooklyn Watertower

2013

Eleanor Park Custis painted scenes as varied as the artist's travels: from her hometown of Washington, D.C., to the coastal towns of New England; from the prosperous fishing villages of Brittany, to Venice and the mountain villages and lakes of northern Italy. While Custis's subjects are diverse, her style is consistent and distinctive throughout this body of work. Her use of flat areas of color delineated by dark contours is reminiscent of the aesthetics of woodblock printing. Like many artists of the day, she was profoundly influenced by Japanese woodblock prints, and her adaptation of the aesthetic by 1924 led to her most productive artistic period. Eleanor Custis hailed from a socially prominent Washington, D.C., family. She was distantly related to Martha Custis Washington, America's first First Lady. Custis began three years of formal art training in the autumn of 1915 at the Corcoran School of Art in Washington, and was guided and inspired by Impressionist artist Edmund C. Tarbell, one of the Ten American Painters, who became the Corcoran School's principal in 1918. Custis exhibited widely in many of the Washington art societies and clubs for much of her career. She was also a frequent exhibitor at the Grand Central Art Galleries in New York City; her last one-woman show there was in April 1945. Custis's mature style emerged in scenes of the streets, wharves, and drydocks of seacoast villages from Maine to Massachusetts, which she visited during the summers of 1924 and 1925. She was working in Gloucester, Massachusetts in August 1924, and painted several gouaches of the town's wharves and winding streets, including In Gloucester Harbor and At the Drydock, Gloucester. During her stay, Custis may have met Jane Peterson or at least must have seen her work, the best of which was executed in Gloucester during the preceding ten years. The similarity between their styles is unmistakable, but, while it may be tempting to suggest that Custis was influenced by Peterson during her summer in Gloucester, the connection between their work is probably more a case of shared aesthetics and common European influences. Custis expanded her subject repertoire with three trips to Europe between 1926 and 1929, and was inspired by the Old World charm of Holland, northern France, Switzerland, and Italy, leading to such works as New Kirk, Delft, Holland, Market Day in Quimper, At the Foot of the Matterhorn, and The Town Square, Varenna. A Mediterranean cruise in 1934 introduced her to the Near East, and the bustling, colorful streets and bazaars of Cairo, captured in works like A Street in Cairo, Egypt and A Moroccan Jug...

David Halbach "Winter's Blanket" 1992 Watercolor on Paper Signed and Dated Lower Left Image Size: 9 x 11 inches Framed Size: 14.5 x 16.5 inches A member of the Cowboy Artists of America since 1985, he has lived in Arizona beginning 1975 and later in the Sierras of California. In 1975, he also won the prestigious Silver Medal at the National Cowboy Hall of Fame show for his watercolor "Story Teller." In 1996 he completed a project for "National Geographic." He attended the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles, and his teachers were the acclaimed Millard Sheets and Rex Brandt...

Cassilly Adams (American 1843-1921) "Medicine Man" c. 1860s Watercolor on Paper Unsigned Provenance: Questroyal Gallery, NYC Site Size: approx. 14.5 x 8....

This artwork "Winter Landscape " c.1930 is a watercolor by noted American artist Raphael Senseman, 1870-1966 It is signed at the lower left corner by the artist. The artwork size is ...

This artwork "Landscape with Cattle" c.1930 is a watercolor by noted American artist Raphael Senseman, 1870-1966 It is signed at the lower right ...

This artwork "Landscape with Trees" 1909 is a watercolor on paper by noted American artist Frederick Leo Hunter, 1858-1943 It is signed and dated at the lower right corner by the artist. The artwork size is 9.5 x 14 inches, framed is 18.5 x 22.35 inches. It is framed in a custom wooden gold frame, with gold color spacer and fabric matting. It is in very good condition. About the artist. Frederick Leo Hunter was born in New York City in 1858. He was known for street scene paintings and etchings of...