John Crimmins

“Orient, Long Island”

Circa 1995

Very well executed oil on masonite painting of a sunset in Topeka, Kansas by the American artist, Pauline Haynes Shirer. Signed lower right. Circa 1950. Condition is excellent. Recently professionally cleaned. Newly framed in a custom gallery frame. Overall framed measurements are 17.5 by 20.5 inches. Provenance: A Long Island, New York collector. Pauline Haynes Shirer (1894 - 1975), American Born in Topeka in 1894, Pauline is said to have been at least partially raised by her aunt, Hannah Haynes Headlee (Pauline’s mother died when she was 8 years old). By 16, she was living as a ward in the Topeka home of Elizabeth Cunningham, a dressmaker. After graduating from Topeka High School, she attended the New York School of Fine and Applied Art (later Parsons School of Design), completing a two-year course in one year (1913-1914). At the same time, she took weekend classes at the Art Students League. Returning to Topeka, she studied and taught at Washburn College (now University) from 1914 to 1915 and instructed summer sessions at Kansas State Teachers College, Pittsburgh, during the same period. Afterward, she returned to the New York School of Fine and Applied Art, where she taught and took classes (1915-1918). She spent the summer of 1916 as an instructor at the Skidmore School of Art, Saratoga Springs, New York. In 1917, Pauline married Hampton F. Shirer, an architect from MIT, who was also an artist and came from a prominent Topeka family. The couple later settled in Wellesley, Massachusetts in 1921, living in a house which they built and decorated themselves. During the next 16 years, they raised two children and Pauline also found time to illustrate promotional brochures and primary school texts. During the early years of her career, Pauline focused on the applied arts – such as watercolor designs for curtains, silk fabrics, wallpaper as well as poster designs, theater backdrops and book covers. Later she would transition into creating her own representational works of art. Shirer returned to Topeka in 1937. During her career as a painter in oils and watercolors, she sketched in Europe four times and did paintings of New England subjects. However, most of her paintings were of the West. She executed Kansas views first, and they continued to hold her interest throughout her life. Typical were her studies of rustic buildings on the plains, glimpses of the prairie country, and the historic buildings of Topeka. She also painted New Mexico landscapes and Colorado mountain scenes. Among her exhibitions, mostly solo but occasionally with her husband, were those held at the Harlow and Harland’s Gallery, Boston (1922); The Scattery, Wellesley, MA (1925); Vose Galleries, Boston (1931); Topeka Art Guild (1952); Copley Society...

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