Name: Beach Scene (Coney Island)
Brand: Martha Walter

Beach Scene (Coney Island)

View Similar Items

Meghan Wilbar - Looking West 3

Meghan Wilbar - Owl Light

Meghan Wilbar - Night's Hallelujah 3

Meghan Wilbar - Coming Home 2.2

Meghan Wilbar - Coming Home 2.3

Meghan Wilbar - Beyond the Horizon

Meghan Wilbar - Journey Through the Painted Sky 2

Meghan Wilbar - Night's Hallelujah 1

Meghan Wilbar - Passing into the Distance

Meghan Wilbar - Coming Home 2.7

Meghan Wilbar - Looking West 4

Meghan Wilbar - Five Miles is Not Long Enough 2

About the Item

Beach Scene (Coney Island) is a fine example of Martha Walter’s light-hearted, colorful harbor and beach scenes, for which she became best known. Her ability to capture the animation of the light and the energy of the movement is amply evident here. Walter alternates between using loose and staccato-like brushwork to depict the figures of the many seaside bathers who are dotted along the edge of the beach and more fluid strokes of paint to capture the ebb and flow of the ocean waves lapping against the shore. Her palette of light blues is brilliantly complemented by dots of red and green, giving the scene a lively almost cheery quality. Martha Walter was a well-known Philadelphia Impressionist. She is most famous for her depictions of Gloucester, Massachusetts, Coney Island, Atlantic City, and the French Coast. Walter studied with William Merritt Chase at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. She received the Cresson Scholarship, which allowed her to travel for two years, visiting France, Spain, Italy, and Holland. While in Paris she attended the Academie Grande Chaumiere and the Academie Julian. However, she found the academy structure too confining and instead set-up her own studio in the Rue de Bagneaus. With the advent of World War I she returned to the United States and established a studio in Gloucester, where she painted beach scenes. She also became intrigued with Ellis Island and painted people as they arrived in ethnic costume from their countries of origin. Walter exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and the National Association for Women Painters. Her work is among the collections of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Norfolk Society of Artists, the Milwaukee Art Institute, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Luxembourg Museum, Paris.

Creator:
Martha Walter (1875-1976, American)
Dimensions:
Height: 9 in (22.86 cm)Width: 11.88 in (30.18 cm)
Medium:
Oil,Wood Panel
Movement & Style:
Abstract Impressionist
Period:
Early 20th Century
Condition:
In overall good condition. The panel is sound and lays flat. Examination under UV light reveals hazy inpainting at bottom left corner as well as at upper center (in the sky) and upper center right (along the right outer edge, just above the horizon l.
Gallery Location:
Bryn Mawr, PA
Reference Number:
1stDibs: LU2773215669822

Shop All Martha Walter

Martha Walter

Walter was born in Philadelphia in 1875. She enrolled at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where she studied under William Merritt Chase, who became her primary mentor. At his insistence, she entered a number of Academy student competitions and eventually won a prestigious Cresson Traveling Scholarship in 1908. This award enabled her to travel throughout Europe, where she continued her art education at the Grande Julien in Paris. Soon disenchanted with the academicism of the Parisian schools, Walter set out on her own and began producing plein-air paintings in the manner of the French Impressionists. At the outbreak of World War I, she returned to the United States and took up painting at various East coast beach resorts such as Coney Island and Gloucester. In her beach scenes of this period, colorful bathing suits, gowns and umbrellas punctuate a tranquil, pastel surface. Her expertise in the treatment of light and shadow is evident in her depictions of these settings at various times of day. In 1922, she spent some months painting the thousands of immigrants kept in the detention hall at Ellis Island. The dreadful, crowded conditions inspired a group of paintings that were exhibited that year in the Galerie Georges Petit in Paris. One was selected for the permanent collection of the Musée de Luxembourg. An exhibition at the Art Club of Chicago in 1941 featured a group of watercolor paintings inspired by the artist's travels through Spain and North Africa. These works were intensely colored visions of such subjects as Algerian street scenes, mosques and Spanish fishermen. Walter worked well into her nineties, continuing to paint portraits of women and children, beach scenes, gardens and marketplaces. Before her death in 1976, she had exhibited widely, and her works are included in major national and international private and public collections. Hammer Galleries had several exhibitions of her work during her lifetime, the last taking place in 1975 when the artist was one hundred years old.

More From This Seller

View All

New York Scene, Chatham Square

By Colin Campbell Cooper

Located in Bryn Mawr, PA

Colin Campbell Cooper is perhaps best known for his marvelous urban depictions of New York and Philadelphia, which encapsulate the vibrant modernity of these street scenes and skyscr...

Category

1910s Abstract Impressionist Landscape Paintings

Materials

Oil, Board

$8,500

The Yosemite Valley No. 1 (sketch)

Located in Bryn Mawr, PA

One of the high points in James David Smillie’s career came when he was commissioned to travel to California to both write and illustrate a chapter on the Yosemite Valley for William...

Category

1870s Abstract Impressionist Landscape Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Nightfall is part of the “Path to Eminence” series by Meghan Wilbar. During the pandemic, the uncertainty and isolation led Wilbar on a new series of work depicting the roads that l...

Category