Levi Wells Prentice

Adirondack Scene

Painted by Historic Woman Artist Anna Freeland, "Gray's Inn, Iron Mountain and Wildcat River, Jackson, NH" depicts an autumn scene in the White Mountains. Painted in oil on canvas, the work measures 12 x 18 inches and is signed and dated 1891 at the lower left. The work is framed in a period appropriate frame and ready to hang. Anna C. Freeland (1837-1911) was born in New Hampshire to Mary Ann (Baker) and William Chamberlain. She received her education at the New Hampshire Conference Seminary and Female College in Tilton, New Hampshire. She studied art in Chicago under Walter Shirlaw, at the Académie Julian in Paris under Constant, and in Boston under William A. Rimmer and William M. Hunt.[1] An artist as well as a respected teacher, Freeland was a founder of the Worcester Art Students Club whose members included Joseph H. Greenwood and Frank J. Darrah. Incorporated in 1887, the club held meetings in the homes of its members. The club began holding meetings and exhibitions at the Worcester Art Museum following its opening in 1898.[2] Freeland offered instruction from her Worcester studio during the Winter months, and for over a decade, spent her summer working in her Jackson, New Hampshire studio.3 Her studio adjoined Gray’s Inn, a lodging establishment popular among artists. While busy executing figurative and floral works, as well as landscape and animal subjects, Freeland continued to teach. In 1886, she instructed a class of lady artists in Jackson.[4] In 1890, Freeland contributed several floral works as well as Portrait of Baby McClure, the infant daughter of an Art Students’ Club member, to the 10th annual exhibition of the club.[5] In 1902, Freeland was the instructor at an outdoor sketch class organized by the Newton Center Woman’s club.[6] In 1910, she exhibited with local artists including Joseph H. Greenwood at the Worcester Art Museum.[7] During her lifetime, Freeland exhibited locally and provided art instruction to notable artists including Walter Appleton Clark...

Painted by Hudson River School artist Hermann Simon (1846-1895) , "Sunset on the Hudson River" is oil on canvas, measures 15 x 25 inches, and is signed and dated 1875 at the lower ri...

Painted by Hudson River School artist William G. Boardman (1815-1895), "White Mountains in New Hampshire" is oil on canvas and measures 28 1/8 x 38 inches. The painting is signed and...

A prominent 19th century landscapist, Hudson River School painter James McDougal Hart's (1828-1901) A Day in November, 1863 is oil on canvas and measures 10.5 x 18 inches. The painti...

Painted by Hudson River School artist Thomas B. Craig (1849-1924), "Autumn Stroll along the River Path" is oil on canvas and measures 20 x 16 inches. The...

Hudson River School artist Charles Wilson Knapp's (1823-1900) "Fisherman by a Brook" is oil on canvas and measures 24 x 20 inches. The work is signed by Knapp at the lower left. The ...

Painted by Hudson River School artist Ida H. Stebbins (b. 1851), "View of South Pond, New York," 1879 is oil on canvas, measures 23 x 33 1/2 inches, and is signed and dated 1879 at the lower left. The work is framed in an elegant Barbizon style frame and ready to hang. Ida H. Stebbins was born in January 1851 in Chelsea, Massachusetts to Mary and Isaac Stebbins, a teacher. Though scant records remain of Stebbins’ artistic training or career, various personal details of her life have been gleaned from contemporary newspapers and federal documents. By the time View of South Pond, New York was painted in 1879, she was living in Boston. Like many artists of her generation, Stebbins likely traveled throughout the Northeast region, gaining inspiration for her paintings from the landscape of New England and New York. Stebbins was likely visiting upstate New York when she painted this sweeping view of South Pond and the surrounding mountains near Long Lake in the Adirondacks just south of Deerland. Here, Stebbins captures the stunning vermillion, burnt orange and brown tones of the autumn landscape with the style and precise rendering often seen in paintings produced by the Hudson River School. Shortly after the completion of View of South Pond, New York, Stebbins married Frank H. Slack, a clerk, in her hometown of Chelsea on December 14, 1881 at the age of thirty. The couple moved to Hotel Comfort in Boston, where their son, Roland Stewart Slack was born on May 22, 1883. It seems likely that her husband died in the mid-1880s since on December 3, 1889, records indicate that Ida and Roland changed their last name back to her maiden name of Stebbins. Roland Stewart Stebbins (1883-1974) inherited his mother’s interest in art, studying at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Columbia University in New York, and the Art Students League of New York. He also studied at the Académie de la Grand Chaumière and the Munich Academy of Fine Arts. Today, he is remembered for his marine and genre paintings and for his legacy as a respected professor of art education at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. On January 1, 1890, Ida married her second husband, Timothy Jarvis, in Somerville, Massachusetts. Their daughter, Ida Hazel Jarvis, was born soon after in 1893. However, the child suffered paralysis from a brain tumor...

Painted by Hudson River School artist Mary Josephine Walters (1837-1883), "Autumn River with Punt in the Reeds" is oil on canvas and measures 13.25 x 23.75 inches. It is inscribed in...

"Cattle by the Sea," c. 1867 by historic woman artist Ann Sophia Towne Darrah (American, 1819-1881) was exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1867. Painted in oil...

Painted by Hudson River School artist Johann Hermann Carmiencke, "Hudson River Landscape" is oil on canvas and measures 12 x 18 inches. The painting is signed and dated 1865 at the l...