John R. Grabach

John R. Grabach Oil Painting, circa 1940s, Woman Fixing Her Hair

circa 1940s

Astounding painting and carving on wood panel by the “Hound of Heaven” artist Robert Gammell. Created 1947. This beautiful work features rich color, gold accents and incredible detail. Signed lower right “R.H. Ives Gammell” and dated ‘47. The subject comes from the imagination of the artist and is titled “Lady of the Seven Sorrows.” The work measures 34 1/2"h x 11 1/4"w and is considered to be one of the artist’s “Puppy Panels.” The ornate frame measures 38 1/2"h x 15 1/2"w x 1 1/4"d. The weight is 9 ½ pounds. A label is attached to the verso listing the work as being an entry for the 1967 Grand National Show with the American Artists Professional League in New York. This detailed and beautiful painting is a work to be treasured. More Information Robert Hale Ives Gammell: After completing his major allegorical sequence, the Hound of Heaven, Gammell felt compelled to revisit certain themes and figurative compositions in later years. His original plan was to display the smaller panels, or "Puppy Panels" as he affectionately called them, between the larger Hound panels. Robert Hale Ives Gammell (1893-1981) was a prolific professional painter working in Boston, Provincetown, and Williamstown, Massachusetts. During the sixty-five years of his career, Gammell painted murals, portraits, landscapes, and still lifes, but the pieces which excited him most were the allegorical works drawn from his imagination. In his diary Gammell wrote that he was “fascinated by the drama of man in his relationship to the forces of the universe and of his own nature.” Over the years he experimented using ancient myths and rituals as well as contemporary symbols in his attempts to articulate images of man’s terror, wonder and yearning in the face of a century of upheaval. Excerpt from Elizabeth Ives Hunter, the God-daughter of R. H. Ives Gammell and the daughter of his assistant, Theodore W. J. Valsam. R. H. Ives Gammell believed in the practice and standards of art should rest on the Gold standard established by the 19th-century French system of learning, as practiced by the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and Academie Julian of Paris. His personal mission was to follow that tradition, so he established his own Studio working with a handful of students at a time. His book ‘Twilight of Painting’ would help define a way back to those lofty goals for future artists, reflecting the uncompromising levels of quality that he embraced, and maintained. Robert Hale Ives Gammell was born to wealth in Providence, Rhode Island and spent the majority of his artistic life in Boston at the Fenway Studios and in Williamstown, MA, where he died in 1981. In 1910, Gammell studied briefly with William C. Loring and Wm. Sergeant Kendall before training in 1913 at Boston's Museum School with Philip Hale, F.W. Benson and Edmund C. Tarbell for a few months. Gammell then went to Provincetown, MA to study with Charles Hawthorn and then to the Academie Julian in Paris and the Academie Baschet until the end of 1914. He was tremendously influenced by the teachings of Tarbell and the work of Joseph DeCamp and William M. Paxton. He was so influenced by the Boston School he vowed to hand down their teaching traditions to generations of students and he did exactly that. Some of the painters who are "Gammellites" are Samuel Rose, Thomas R. Dunlay, Robert Cormier, Richard Lack, Gary Hoffman, Stephen Gjerston, Robert Douglas Hunter, David Lowrey, David Curtis...

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