Don Kitz Art

“Venice, 1889” by Louis Ritter (American, 1854-1892). A fantastic example of Ritter’s renowned European watercolors. This beautifully poised composition captures the sun-washed faça...

Max Kuehne (1880 - 1968) Train Station, circa 1910 Watercolor on paper 8 1/4 x 10 1/4 inches Signed lower right Provenance: Private Collection, Illinois Max Kuehne was born in Halle, Germany on November 7, 1880. During his adolescence the family immigrated to America and settled in Flushing, New York. As a young man, Max was active in rowing events, bicycle racing, swimming and sailing. After experimenting with various occupations, Kuehne decided to study art, which led him to William Merritt Chase's famous school in New York; he was trained by Chase himself, then by Kenneth Hayes Miller. Chase was at the peak of his career, and his portraits were especially in demand. Kuehne would have profited from Chase's invaluable lessons in technique, as well as his inspirational personality. Miller, only four years older than Kuehne, was another of the many artists to benefit from Chase's teachings. Even though Miller still would have been under the spell of Chase upon Kuehne's arrival, he was already experimenting with an aestheticism that went beyond Chase's realism and virtuosity of the brush. Later Miller developed a style dependent upon volumetric figures that recall Italian Renaissance prototypes. Kuehne moved from Miller to Robert Henri in 1909. Rockwell Kent, who also studied under Chase, Miller, and Henri, expressed what he felt were their respective contributions: "As Chase had taught us to use our eyes, and Henri to enlist our hearts, Miller called on us to use our heads." (Rockwell Kent, It's Me O Lord: The Autobiography of Rockwell Kent. New York: Dodd, Mead and Co., 1955, p. 83). Henri prompted Kuehne to search out the unvarnished realities of urban living; a notable portion of Henri's stylistic formula was incorporated into his work. Having received such a thorough foundation in art, Kuehne spent a year in Europe's major art museums to study techniques of the old masters. His son Richard named Ernest Lawson as one of Max Kuehne's European traveling companions. In 1911 Kuehne moved to New York where he maintained a studio and painted everyday scenes around him, using the rather Manet-like, dark palette of Henri. A trip to Gloucester during the following summer engendered a brighter palette. In the words of Gallatin (1924, p. 60), during that summer Kuehne "executed some of his most successful pictures, paintings full of sunlight . . . revealing the fact that he was becoming a colorist of considerable distinction." Kuehne was away in England the year of the Armory Show (1913), where he worked on powerful, painterly seascapes on the rocky shores of Cornwall. Possibly inspired by Henri - who had discovered Madrid in 1900 then took classes there in 1906, 1908 and 1912 - Kuehne visited Spain in 1914; in all, he would spend three years there, maintaining a studio in Granada. He developed his own impressionism and a greater simplicity while in Spain, under the influence of the brilliant Mediterranean light. George Bellows convinced Kuehne to spend the summer of 1919 in Rockport, Maine (near Camden). The influence of Bellows was more than casual; he would have intensified Kuehne's commitment to paint life "in the raw" around him. After another brief trip to Spain in 1920, Kuehne went to the other Rockport (Cape Ann, Massachusetts) where he was accepted as a member of the vigorous art colony, spearheaded by Aldro T. Hibbard. Rockport's picturesque ambiance fulfilled the needs of an artist-sailor: as a writer in the Gloucester Daily Times explained, "Max Kuehne came to Rockport to paint, but he stayed to sail." The 1920s was a boom decade for Cape Ann, as it was for the rest of the nation. Kuehne's studio in Rockport was formerly occupied by Jonas Lie. Kuehne spent the summer of 1923 in Paris, where in July, André Breton started a brawl as the curtain went up on a play by his rival Tristan Tzara; the event signified the demise of the Dada movement. Kuehne could not relate to this avant-garde art but was apparently influenced by more traditional painters — the Fauves, Nabis, and painters such as Bonnard. Gallatin perceived a looser handling and more brilliant color in the pictures Kuehne brought back to the States in the fall. In 1926, Kuehne won the First Honorable Mention at the Carnegie Institute, and he re-exhibited there, for example, in 1937 (Before the Wind). Besides painting, Kuehne did sculpture, decorative screens, and furniture work with carved and gilded molding. In addition, he designed and carved his own frames, and John Taylor Adams encouraged Kuehne to execute etchings. Through his talents in all these media he was able to survive the Depression, and during the 1940s and 1950s these activities almost eclipsed his easel painting. In later years, Kuehne's landscapes and still-lifes show the influence of Cézanne and Bonnard, and his style changed radically. Max Kuehne died in 1968. He exhibited his work at the National Academy of Design, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh, the Memorial Art Gallery of the University of Rochester, and in various New York City galleries. Kuehne's works are in the following public collections: the Detroit Institute of Arts (Marine Headland), the Whitney Museum (Diamond Hill...

Jane Peterson Orchard in Blossom, circa 1918 Signed lower left Watercolor and gouache on paper 18 x 24 inches Exhibited New York, National Arts Club, American Watercolor Society - A...

"Planting (Spring Plowing)", a vibrant watercolor and graphite on paper by Thomas Hart Benton, circa 1939-40, embodies the artist's signature Regionalist style. The work depicts a ru...

“Rowing on the Charles River, Harvard University” by Aiden Lassell Ripley (American, 1896-1969) A fantastic, rare view of Harvard University and the Charles River by renowned Americ...

Carl Oscar Borg (1879–1947) An Old Military Road, The Road over Dovrefjell, Norway gouache on paper, ca. 1900 signed sheet 12.5 cm x 17.5 (4.9 x 6.9 in) framed 23 × 28 cm (9 × 11...

An early-20th-century, landscape showing a view of the coastline at Moss Beach in Monterey County with slate-blue skies overhead and a view towards a stand of windswept Monterey Cypress with a view of the cobalt blue ocean beyond. A particularly fresh and bright example, kept until recently in a portfolio. Monogrammed lower right, "EW", dated "X-mas 1909", signed verso, "Elmer Wachtel", and inscribed lower left, "Moss Beach, Monterey County, California". A prominent California landscape painter of the late 19th and early 20th-century, Elmer Wachtel specialized in panoramic coastal scenes and desert and mountain landscapes using impressionist brushstrokes. His early works were tonalist in mood, and his later paintings were more decorative and light hearted. Elmer Wachtel was an American artist who holds a high place in the early California school of Impressionism. He was born in Baltimore, Maryland on January 21, 1864 -- he received his artistic training at the Art Students' League of New York under William Merritt Chase, and the Art School in London 1901-02. While in California he resided and maintained studios in Los Angeles and Pasadena. In 1904 Elmer Wachtel married the artist Marion Kavanaugh (1876-1954) in Chicago. Husband and wife were frequently seen painting the Southern California landscape -- they were known to have traveled by horseback over the San Marcos Pass to the Santa Inez Valley -- they traversed and painted the coastline between Gaviota and Conception Lighthouse (just north of Santa Barbara, California), the Cooper Ranch (north of Santa Barbara), Matilija Canyon and Ojai, California. Venturing south the couple made it to the San Luis Rey River (near present day Oceanside) and the Cerisa Loma Ranch (near San Diego). In 1908 they trekked to the arid deserts of Arizona and New Mexico painting...

Edward Dufner (1872 - 1957) Monhegan Island, Maine Watercolor on paper Sight 16 x 20 inches Signed lower right With a long-time career as an art teacher and painter of both 'light' and 'dark', Edward Dufner was one of the first students of the Buffalo Fine Arts Academy to earn an Albright Scholarship to study painting in New York. In Buffalo, he had exchanged odd job work for drawing lessons from architect Charles Sumner. He also earned money as an illustrator of a German-language newspaper, and in 1890 took lessons from George Bridgman at the Buffalo Fine Arts Academy. In 1893, using his scholarship, Dufner moved to Manhattan and enrolled at the Art Students League where he studied with Henry Siddons Mowbray, figure painter and muralist. He also did illustration work for Life, Harper's and Scribner's magazines. Five years later, in 1898, Dufner went to Paris where he studied at the Academy Julian with Jean-Paul Laurens and privately with James McNeill Whistler. Verification of this relationship, which has been debated by art scholars, comes from researcher Nancy Turk who located at the Smithsonian Institution two 1927 interviews given by Dufner. Turk wrote that Dufner "talks in detail about Whistler, about how he prepared his canvasas and about numerous pieces he painted. . . A great read, the interview puts to bed" the ongoing confusion about whether or not he studied with Whistler. During his time in France, Dufner summered in the south at Le Pouleu with artists Richard Emil Miller...

“Harvard Graduates at Massachusetts Hall” by Aiden Lassell Ripley (American, 1896-1969) A wonderful depiction of Harvard graduates on campus by renowned watercolorist and former Har...

A fine monochromatic watercolor landscape painting of Mount Monadnock in New Hampshire by American artist Gifford Beal (1879-1956). Beal was b...

Original watercolor on archival paper of the mountains of Saint Maurice in France by the well known American artist, Dodge MacKnight. Signed lower left and titled and dated 1894 low...

Watercolor on heavy paper work is unframed Signed by artist in pencil, lower right verso. Property from the estate of Anne E. C. Porter, with the estate stamp, verso. ...