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Julian Onderdonk
"IN THE LAND OF THE SPANISH OAK " TEXAS HILL COUNTRY DATED 1910

Dated 1910

About the Item

Julian Onderdonk (1882 - 1922) San Antonio Artist Image Size: 20 x 30 Frame Size: 29 x 39 Medium: Oil Dated 1910 "In The Land Of The Spanish Oak" Spectacular larger scene by Julian Onderdonk. The signature is obscured on front. Clearly signed, titled, and dated on verso. This painting will be included in the addendum to the Onderdonk book. Julian Onderdonk (1882 - 1922) Known as the "Bluebonnet Painter", Robert Julian Onderdonk was a Texan who spent his summer's in New York City and the remainder of the year in San Antonio. He earned his title from the many wildflower paintings he did of the flowering fields near his hometown. He was the son and art student of artist Robert Jenkins Onderdonk and the brother of Eleanor Onderdonk, also a prominent Texas painter, sculptor, and art administrator. In 1901, when he was nineteen, he went to New York and enrolled at the Art Students League and became a student of Kenyon Cox, Robert Henri, and Frank DuMond. He also studied with William Merritt Chase at Chase's summer school at Shinnecock on Long Island and the New York School of Art, and Chase had a continuing influence on his work. Ever in need of money to support his love of painting, Onderdonk took a temporary position in 1906 with the Dallas State Fair Association to put on an art exhibit, and three years later he took a job with them that lasted until until his premature death in 1922 at age forty. Onderdonk married in 1902, and when he returned to Texas in 1909, the New York art critics had become aware of him. Onderdonk would maintain a foothold in the art world there because his employment by the Dallas State Fair Association required him to return on a yearly basis to New York City. Even though the artist had never been a member, the National Academy of Design in New York City took the rather extraordinary step, upon his death, of exhibiting Onderdonk's last painting, "Dawn in the Hills". A fund-raising campaign in San Antonio purchased the painting for the city's art museum. Robert Julian Onderdonk was a member of the Allied Artists of America, Salmagundi Club and San Antonio Art League. His paintings are in the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, Fort Worth Art Association, Museum of Fine Arts of Houston, San Antonio Museum Association and Stark Museum of Art, Orange, Texas "A Texas Painter Worked Under the Radar in New York," By Eve M. Kahn, March 6, 2014, The New York Times Onderdonk, a San Antonio native who died of an intestinal ailment in 1922, at 40, is best known for painting swaths of Texas bluebonnets. Those canvases can bring more than $500,000 each, while his New York scenes usually end up in the five-figure range. Onderdonk’s parents were painters in San Antonio, and in 1901, when he was a teenager, they sent him to New York for training. Through 1909, he lived in various Manhattan apartments and Staten Island houses. He then returned to Texas, but continued to spend months at a time in New York. In 1902 he had married a Manhattan teenage neighbor, Gertrude Shipman. While she focused on raising their daughter, Adrienne, and worrying about their strained finances, “he created more than 600 works of art, often producing a painting or two a day,” Eyewitnesses recorded his prolific pace in New York, but Onderdonk works bearing those dates rarely turn up. The puzzling gap in his productivity is explained in family correspondence that the Bakers uncovered: The artist admits that he was signing pieces with pseudonyms. He mostly used Chas. Turner and Chase Turner and occasionally resorted to Elbert H. Turner and Roberto Vasquez. Julian Onderdonk was the son of the important Texas landscapist, Robert Onderdonk. He was the father's pupil at age 16. Sponsored by a Texas patron, he studied at the Art Students League in New York when he was 19, the pupil of Kenyon Cox, Frank DuMond, and Robert Henri. He also studied with William Merritt Chase on Long Island. In 1902, having lost his Texas patron because he married, he asked $18 for 12 paintings at a Fifth Avenue dealer in New York City, and was glad to accept $14 for the lot. In 1909, Julian Onderdonk returned to the family studio in San Antonio. He painted "the bigness of Texas, dusty roads, the blooming cactus or hillsides of blue lupine, rolling gulf clouds, aged liveoaks, and the gray brush in winter. His style changed somewhat in his later years." Onderdonk was heavy-set with dark eyes and hair, quiet and serious, "a strong personality." When he died at 40, "five of his pictures were on the way to New York. He also had orders ahead for $20,000 of work." He was known as the painter of the bluebonnet flowers of Texas.
  • Creator:
    Julian Onderdonk (1882-1922, American)
  • Creation Year:
    Dated 1910
  • Dimensions:
    Height: 29 in (73.66 cm)Width: 39 in (99.06 cm)Depth: 4 in (10.16 cm)
  • More Editions & Sizes:
    Image Size: 20 x 30Price: $240,000
  • Medium:
  • Movement & Style:
  • Period:
  • Framing:
    Frame Included
    Framing Options Available
  • Condition:
    Spectacular larger scene by Julian Onderdonk. The signature is obscured on front. Clearly signed, titled, and dated on verso. Please check our 1stdibs storefront for additional goodies.
  • Gallery Location:
    San Antonio, TX
  • Reference Number:
    1stDibs: LU76936308762

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