Edmund John Niemann

Distant Landscape

Everett Lloyd Bryant American, 1864-1945 Woman in Kimono Oil on canvas Signed lower right 30 by 25 in. W/frame 35 by 30 in. Everett studied wit...

Frank Usher De Voll American, 1873-1941 East River, New York Winter (From Brooklyn Bridge) Oil on canvas 32 by 36 in. w/frame 41 by 45 in. Signe...

George Botti Italian, 1923-2003 Family in a Park Oil on canvas 36 by 36 in. W/frame 42 by 42 in. Signed lower right Barrel George Botti was born on  2...

Antonio DeVity Italian, 1901-1993 L'Opera, Paris Oil on canvas 16 by 20 in. W/frame 20 by 24 in. Signed lower right Antonio De Vity was born in Reggio-Calbria in southern Italy. ...

Edward Francis Rook American, 1870-1960 Brittany Oil on Canvas 30 by 30 in. W/frame 38 by 38 in. Signed lower left Circa, 1898-1900 Rook, born in New York City on September 21, 1870, became one of the most original impressionists at Old Lyme. First he was a student of Benjamin Constant and Jean-Paul Laurens at the Académie Julian.  Life started out to be rather promising for Rook, around the turn of the century.  He exhibited at the Cincinnati Art Museum and at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, both in 1898, when his harbor scene, entitled Pearl Clouds — Moonlight was reproduced in International Studio, in April.  In addition, the PAFA presented him with the Temple Gold Medal for Deserted Street, Moonlight, which the Academy purchased.  Three years later, Rook was awarded a bronze medal at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, where he exhibited three landscapes.  Caffin (1902, p. xxxvi) praised the artist's "translucent quality of color," which suggests a study of color theory.  Also in 1901, Rook married Edith Sone.  For most of 1902, the Rooks were in Mexico. Rook came to Old Lyme in October of 1903.  The date is significant because Childe Hassam was also there that month.  Hassam would more or less re-orient the artists' colony from Tonalism to impressionism.  Rook would move there permanently two years later.  He took two medals at the St. Louis Universal Exposition (1904) where his landscapes from the Mexican trip were displayed.  More awards followed: a silver medal at the International Fine Arts Exposition in Buenos Aires, 1910, a gold medal at San Francisco's Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915,  a Corcoran Bronze Medal, and a William A. Clark Award in 1919 for Peonies.   By 1924, the artist was made a National Academician.  Despite all these awards and recognition, Rook did little in the way of selling his art and reportedly, his prices were too high.  His paintings were handled by Macbeth and Grand Central Art Galleries. Rook was active in Old Lyme's art community.  As stated above, he would have met Hassam that October in 1903 but Willard Metcalf had departed at the end of the summer.  As several writers have explained (Connecticut and American Impressionism, 1980, p. 123), Hassam "was the catalyst around whom [impressionism] coalesced."   Rook's niece, Virginia Rook Garver, who happened to be the grand-niece of Hassam, confirmed that Rook and Hassam knew each other in Europe — before they went to Old Lyme (Fischer, 1987, p. 19).  Rook was one of the relatively young painters to come to Old Lyme, along with Gifford Beal, William Chadwick, and Robert Nisbet, on the wave of impressionism, initiated there by Hassam and Metcalf.  Old Lyme became a center of American impressionism, and as Donelson F. Hoopes remarked, "under Hassam, the shoreline of Connecticut became a kind of Giverny of America."  Among Ranger's group, palettes started to become lighter, except those of the most determined tonalists.  Ranger himself, perhaps admitting defeat, moved to Noank in 1904.  Rook is best known for his views of Bradbury's Mill, which was soon called Rook's Mill, owing to the painter's many versions of the scene.  One, called Swirling Waters, dated ca. 1917, is in the Lyme Historical Society.  Even more famous is Rook's Laurel, dated between 1905 and 1910 (Florence Griswold Museum), in which a profuse laurel bush (the state flower), is set off by a spectacular Constable-like background.  But Swirling Waters could never be confused with Constable, with its violent brushwork, impasto-layered water, and bright, almost chalky, plein-air palette.  Gerdts (1984, p. 226) compares the paintings of Walter...

Jacques Bouyssou French, 1926-1997 Hotel de Ville, Paris   Oil on canvas 24 by 29 in. W/frame 33 by 38 in. Signed lower right   Born near Honfleur in...

The Young Shepherdess by Charles Amable Lenoir (1860-1926) Oil on canvas 48 x 32 inches unframed (121.92 x 81.28 cm.) 58 ½ x 42 ¾ inches framed (148.59 x 10...

The Crossing, 1855, by Theodore Frere (1814-1888) Oil on wood panel 9 x 14 inches unframed (22.86 x 35.56 cm) 17 ¾ x 22 ½ inches framed (45.085 x 57.15 cm...

Federico Del Campo (Lima 1837 - Venice 1923), The Toy Seller (1877) Oil painting on panel 22 x 37 cm signed Campo on the left, on the back is an old label from Williams and sons ga...

Josef THOMA (Vienna, 1828 - Vienna, 1899) On the shores of a lake in the Austrian Alps Oil on canvas Signed and dated lower right 53 x 80 cm 1877 Josef ...

August Wilhelm LEU (Munster, 1819 – Seelisberg, 1897) View of Capri Oil on canvas Signed and dated lower right 49 x 70 cm 1882 Born March 24, 1819 in Munster, Germany, Auguste Leu...

Exhibited: Salon, Société des Artistes Français, Paris, 1879 (no. 647)