John Koch

Bubbles

Excerpted from The Painter's Journey: The Art of William S. Robinson, The Cooley Gallery Born in East Gloucester, Massachusetts, William S. Robinson became a talented and successful...

Like his mentor the great American Impressionist William Merritt Chase, Charles Webster Hawthorne was equally admired in his own day as both a talented painter and a highly influential instructor. Hawthorne first studied with Chase at his Shinnecock Summer School of Art, which was specifically dedicated to open-air landscape painting. Not only did Hawthorne quickly absorb all the principles of Chase’s instruction, but he also became determined to found his own school based on the same model. In 1899 Hawthorne discovered the small fishing village of Provincetown on the furthermost tip of Cape Cod, and after purchasing a large house on Miller Hill, he opened the Cape Cod School of Art, which proved to be an immediate success. While Hawthorne’s own approach as a teacher owed much to Chase, he developed a distinctly unique painting style and teaching method that defies easy categorization. He was greatly impressed with the work of Franz Hals, which he was exposed to during his trip to Holland in the summer of 1898. Hawthorne was particularly struck by Hals’ Regentesses of the Old Men’s Almhouse, and from this work he absorbed a deep appreciation for the power of human expression and an economy of technique. Hawthorne applied these lessons to his own realistic portraits of Provincetown fishermen and their families; these works have a somber, almost melancholy quality to them, and they reveal a sense of the vulnerability of the human condition. Stylistically, Hawthorne maintained a life-long commitment to the importance of color. “Beauty in art,” he said, “is the delicious notes of color one against the other.” Of equal importance to him was capturing the effects of light. He told his students: “Everything in painting is a matter of silhouettes. Hold light against shadow, not light against light.” He developed a particular technique of layering glazes and texturing the surface of his paintings, which heightens the relationship between the colors and creates a light effect that seems to emanate from within the painting. These stylistic techniques in combination with his straightforward compositions of one or more figures shown at close range create the hallmarks of Hawthorne’s best paintings. Hawthorne and his wife Ethel’s 1905-1907 trip to Italy did not result in a drastic impact on his artistic style. Nonetheless, it proved to be a transformative and enlightening voyage. The extensive trip was financed by collectors who paid in advance for a painting to be produced abroad. On the trip, Hawthorne explored the work of old masters and was struck particularly by the paintings of Titian, which to Hawthorne, demonstrated the master’s true adoration for the act of painting itself through his handling of paint and color. Where Titian’s paintings...

Provenance Private collection, St. Petersburg, Florida; Arthur and Holly Magill, Greenville, South Carolina, acquired from the above; Sotheby’s, New York, 30 November 2000, lot 11, s...

Ralph Cahoon Jr.'s whimsical paintings are not only lighthearted and charming, they are also the hallmark of his creativity and imagination. His playful approach to painting and info...

Columbus Avenue NYC c. 1920s/30s American Scene Ashcan WPA Modern 20th Century "Late Afternoon, Columbus Avenue, New York", impasto oil on canvas, signed lower left, signed verso (under relining, shown in photo), and titled verso on stretcher, in maple mitered cove frame, 23 1/4" x 27 1/4", SS: 19 1/4" x 23 1/4", Relined. BIO Russian-born Gussow trained at the Art Students League and the National Academy of Design. He also studied under Bonnat at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. His first claim to fame was exhibiting two works at the Armory Show in 1913. Gussow exhibited at the Society of Independent Artists between 1917 and 1934 and at Salons of America in the 1930s. The Whitney Museum of American Art, for example, has his Subway Stairs. The Barnes Foundation...

"A troubadour was a composer and performer of Old Occitan lyric poetry during the High Middle Ages (1100–1350). The texts of troubadour songs deal mainly with themes of chivalry and ...

Warmth radiates from a gentle mix of soft, billowing clouds and the glow of a sunset sky, enveloping the viewer in a serene setting. The scene presents a youthful gaze filled with cu...

Three Young Men California WPA Figurative Modern Art Gay American Scene 1930s An artist on the WPA mural project, Deutsch was born in Lithuania and died in Los Angeles. Works of Boris Deutsch are housed in Carnegie Institute, National Museum of American Art, Los-Angeles County Museum of Art, Scribal Museum, Pomona College...