Skip to main content
Want more images or videos?
Request additional images or videos from the seller
1 of 5

Georgina Klitgaard
"Desert" Georgina Klitgaard, Modernist Desert Landscape With Waning Moon

Circa 1940s

$8,000
£6,070.22
€6,940.75
CA$11,173.83
A$12,423.78
CHF 6,487.01
MX$151,227.65
NOK 82,771.45
SEK 77,552.89
DKK 51,800.09
Shipping
Retrieving quote...
The 1stDibs Promise:
Authenticity Guarantee,
Money-Back Guarantee,
24-Hour Cancellation

About the Item

Georgina Klitgaard Desert Signed lower right Oil on canvas 18 x 30 inches Georgina Klitgaard’s art has sometimes gotten lost in the critical propensity to assign artists to membership in one school or another. Unfortunately for her posthumous reputation, Klitgaard defied easy characterization. She was a U.S. modernist, working in both oil and watercolors, but never abandoned figurative painting. She made her reputation in landscape but also excelled in portraits, flower studies, and even cityscapes. Yet despite Klitgaard’s ambiguous status in art history, her paintings continue to fascinate viewers attracted to the unsteady ground between twentieth-century realism and expressionism. Georgina Klitgaard’s art has sometimes gotten lost in the critical propensity to assign artists to membership in one school or another. Unfortunately for her posthumous reputation, Klitgaard defied easy characterization. She was a U.S. modernist, working in both oil and watercolors, but never abandoned figurative painting. She made her reputation in landscape but also excelled in portraits, flower studies, and even cityscapes. Yet despite Klitgaard’s ambiguous status in art history, her paintings continue to fascinate viewers attracted to the unsteady ground between twentieth-century realism and expressionism. Georgina Klitgaard (née Berrian) was born in Spuyten Duyvil, New York (now part of the Bronx); the Berrians had lived in the area since at least the U.S. Revolution. After graduating from Barnard College, she studied art at the National Academy of Design. In 1919 she married Kay Klitgaard, a Danish artist and writer. The next year, her life took a decisive turn when the couple visited friends in Woodstock, NY—about 120 miles north of New York City--and fell in love with the area. In 1906, L. Birge Harrison helped found the Art Students League Summer School in Woodstock and the area became a magnet for landscape painters. The Klitgaards bought a house in 1922 on a steep ledge at the end of Cricket Ridge, high above Bearsville, which provided panoramic vistas overlooking the Catskill Mountains and the Hudson Valley. Klitgaard joined the artists’ colony in the area, which at the time included artists Ernest Fiene and Katherine Schmidt. Klitgaard exhibited widely and her career slowly developed momentum. She was a regular contributor at Whitney Museum shows from 1927 to 1944. In 1929, she exhibited a painting entitled “Carousel” in the Whitney Studio Club’s famous exhibition “Circus in Paint.” Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney acquired five paintings by Klitgaard in the early 1930s and served as a significant patron for the artist. Klitgaard s New York dealer, Frank Rehn Galleries, exhibited her work from 1930 through the 1950s. During the Great Depression, the Works Progress Administration commissioned Klitgaard to create murals for three U.S. post offices: Goshen (1937) and Poughkeepsie (1940) in New York, and Pelham, Georgia (1941). Klitgaard’s Goshen mural, “The Running of the Hambletonian Stake,” was controversial for featuring harness racing, a theme still considered of questionable taste for public art even though it was the village’s claim to fame. When Klitgaard died in 1976, she seemed out of fashion, detached from almost all postwar art trends. However, in the twenty-first century, she has benefitted from the renewed interest in the prominent female modernists who prospered during the interwar years. Her paintings remain exemplary examples of conservative American modernism.
  • Creator:
    Georgina Klitgaard (1893-1976, American)
  • Creation Year:
    Circa 1940s
  • Dimensions:
    Height: 22 in (55.88 cm)Width: 33 in (83.82 cm)
  • Medium:
  • Movement & Style:
  • Period:
  • Condition:
  • Gallery Location:
    New York, NY
  • Reference Number:
    1stDibs: LU1841215229692

More From This Seller

View All
"Arroyo Seco, New Mexico" Georgina Klitgaard, Modernist Southwest Oil Landscape
By Georgina Klitgaard
Located in New York, NY
Georgina Klitgaard Arroyo Seco, New Mexico Signed lower right Oil on canvas 28 x 42 inches Georgina Klitgaard’s art has sometimes gotten lost in the critical propensity to assign a...
Category

1940s American Modern Figurative Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

"Mexican Mountains, " Hendrik Glintenkamp, Modernist Landscape
By Hendrik Glintenkamp
Located in New York, NY
Hendrik (Henry) J Glintenkamp (1887 - 1946) Mexican Mountains, 1940 Oil on canvas 32 x 26 inches Signed lower left; signed and dated on the reverse T...
Category

1940s American Modern Landscape Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

"Glasco Landscape" Albert Heckman, circa 1940 New York Modernist Landscape
By Albert Heckman
Located in New York, NY
Albert Heckman Glasco Landscape, circa 1940 Signed lower right Oil on canvas 25 1/4 x 39 1/2 inches Albert Heckman was born in Meadville, Western Pennsylvania, 1893. He went to New York City to try his hand at the art world in 1915 after graduating from high school and landing a job at the Meadville Post Office. In 1917, at the age of 24, Heckman enrolled part-time in Teachers' College, Columbia University's Fine Arts Department to begin his formal art education. He worked as a freelance ceramic and textile designer and occasionally as a lecturer at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In the early 1920s, at the age of almost 30, he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree from Columbia Teachers College. He was especially impacted by his instructor at Columbia, Arthur Wesley Dow. After graduating, he was hired by the Teachers' College as a Fine Arts instructor. He stayed with Columbia Teachers' College until 1929, when he left to attend the Leipzig Institute of Graphic Arts in Leipzig, Germany. Isami Doi (1903-1965), who was born in Hawaii, was arguably his most impressive student at Columbia. Doi is now regarded as one of the most prominent artists hailing from Hawaii. Heckman became an active member and officer of the Keramic Society and Design Guild of New York in the 1920s as part of his early commercial art career. The Society's mission was to share knowledge and showcase textile and ceramic design exhibits. In 1922, Heckman married Florence Hardman, a concert violinist. Mrs. Heckman's concert schedule during the 1920s kept Albert and Florence Heckman apart for a significant portion of the time, but they spent what little time they had together designing and building their Woodstock, New York, summer house and grounds. A small house and an acre of surrounding land on Overlook Mountain, just behind the village of Woodstock, were purchased by Albert and Florence Heckman at the time of their marriage. Their Woodstock home, with its connections, friendships, and memories, became a central part of their lives over the years, even though they had an apartment in New York City. Heckman's main artistic focus shifted to the house on Overlook Mountain and the nearby towns and villages, Kingston, Eddyville, and Glasco. After returning from the Leipzig Institute of Graphic Arts in 1930, Mr. Heckman joined Hunter College as an assistant professor of art. He worked there for almost thirty years, retiring in 1956. Throughout his tenure at Hunter, Mr. Heckman and his spouse spent the summers at their Woodstock residence and the winters in New York City. They were regular and well-known guests at the opera and art galleries in New York. Following his retirement in 1956, the Heckmans settled in Woodstock permanently, with occasional trips to Florida or Europe during the fall and winter. Mr. Heckman's close friends and artistic career were always connected to Woodstock or New York City. He joined the Woodstock art group early on and was greatly influenced by artists like Paul and Caroline Rohland, Emil Ganso, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Andre Ruellan, and her husband, Jack...
Category

1940s American Modern Figurative Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

"Trees in a Landscape" Eanger Irving Couse, American Southwestern Landscape
By Eanger Irving Couse
Located in New York, NY
Eanger Irving Couse Trees in a Landscape, circa 1900 Signed lower left Oil on canvas 9 1/8 x 14 5/8 inches Provenance Fenn Gallery, Santa Fe, New Mexico Private Collection, Arizona ...
Category

Early 1900s French School Figurative Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

"Catskill Mountains" Georgina Klitgaard, Country Landscape Modernist Hills
By Georgina Klitgaard
Located in New York, NY
Georgina Klitgaard Catskill Mountains Signed lower right Oil on canvas 24 x 30 inches Georgina Klitgaard’s art has sometimes gotten lost in the critical propensity to assign artist...
Category

Early 20th Century American Modern Figurative Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

"Intimate Landscape II" John Grillo, Bright Abstract Expressionist Landscape
By John Grillo
Located in New York, NY
John Grillo Intimate Landscape II, 1975 Signed and Dated LR Signed, Titled, and dated on the reverse of the frame Oil on artist board 10 x 11 3/4 inches Provenance The Little Galler...
Category

1970s Abstract Expressionist Abstract Paintings

Materials

Oil, Board

You May Also Like

Mid Century Desert Mountain Landscape
By Faith Dougherty
Located in Soquel, CA
Mid Century Desert Mountain Landscape Sweeping mid century landscape of stark desert mountains by Faith Dougherty (American, 20th Century). The viewer looks out over a dry valley, s...
Category

1960s Contemporary Landscape Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Mid Century Modern Swedish Semi-Abstract Landscape Oil Painting -Desert Geometry
Located in Bristol, GB
DESERT GEOMETRY Size: 34 x 52.5 cm (including frame) Oil on board A striking modernist style landscape oil painting, by Swedish artist Eric Elfvén (1921–2008), whose works have been...
Category

Mid-20th Century Modern Landscape Paintings

Materials

Oil, Board

Desert Evening, Painting, Acrylic on Canvas
By Crystal DiPietro
Located in Yardley, PA
There is nothing quite so beautiful as the way the desert lights up at sunset. This is an ode to those shadows & highlights in the evening. :: Painting :...
Category

2010s Contemporary Landscape Paintings

Materials

Acrylic

1960s Mid Century Modern Desert Landscape Acrylic Painting in Rich Earth Tones
Located in Denver, CO
This captivating 1960s abstract painting, titled "Desert Landscape," is a striking original work by acclaimed New Mexico and Colorado artist Ann Sink. The composition beautifully cap...
Category

1960s Abstract Expressionist Abstract Paintings

Materials

Acrylic

Modernist Oversized Oil painting "Quiet Desert Tranquility"
Located in Douglas Manor, NY
5207 Oversized Modernist Oil painting on rapped canvas of a desert landscape Signed Robert Yaumola Edges are painted no need for frame
Category

1970s Landscape Paintings

Materials

Oil

Abstract expressionist landscape desert painting "Mountain silence and heat"
Located in VÉNISSIEUX, FR
"Mountain Silence and Heat" is a vivid and emotionally charged landscape inspired by the rugged beauty of the American desert. It captures a striking contrast between pockets of lush...
Category

2010s Abstract Expressionist Abstract Paintings

Materials

Paper, Acrylic