Muriel Archer Landscape Drawings and Watercolors

'Paris Booksellers Along the River Seine', gouache on paper (circa 1930s), by Lucien Génin. The used-book sellers (bouquinistes) you see along the Seine a...

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...

The artist: Henri Aime Duhem (1860-1941) French *see notes below, signed Title: The River Landscape Medium: signed gouache on paper, loosely laid over card, unframed card: 9.7...

The artist: Henri Aime Duhem (1860-1941) French *see notes below, signed Title: The Riverbank Medium: signed gouache on paper, loosely laid over card,...

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...

This delicate watercolor painting captures the serene beauty of springtime in Linda Clerget's garden. In the center of the composition sits Isis, her beloved cat, surrounded by vibra...

Bright Fauvist landscape of Half Dome in Yosemite National Park, with beautiful use of color by Karen Druker (American, 1945). Signed "Druker" in the lower right corner. Presented in...

Original watercolor and gouache on archival paper of birch trees in winter along a fenced roadway with a quaint home in the background. Signed lower right. Condition is excellent. Circa 1960. The watercolor is in a solid mahogany frame under UV glass in fine condition. Overall framed measurements are 14 by 11 inches. Provenance: A East Hampton, Long Island, New York collector. Born in Queens, Long Island, NY, Impressionist landscape and seascape painter Francis Dixon studied at the Art Students League in New York City under Impressionists Frank Vincent DuMond, Cape Cod, Massachusetts artist, Charles W. Hawthorne, and modernist Robert Henri. Having a good singing voice Dixon was an Army and Navy Song Leader for the War Department during World War I. From 1915 to 1917 was living and painting in Los Angeles, Carmel and Point Lobos, California. Dixon exhibited his California paintings at Folson Galleries New York City in 1917. Dixon continued to travel and paint, visiting Bermuda in 1923 and 1925, and Europe in the mid-1920s. In the 1930s he was living on West 55th Street in Manhattan with a number of other artists. He was a member of the Allied Artists of America (NY); Connecticut Academy of Fine Arts; and the Salmagundi Club, NY. He exhibited at The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (1916); Folson Gallery (NY, 1917, solo); Society of Independent Artists (NYC, 1917-18, 1920-22, 1924); Salmagundi Club (NYC, 1917-1940, 1943, 1945); National Academy of Design (NYC, 1925); Studio Guild Galleries (NYC, 1937); Barbizon-Plaza Galleries NYC, 1939); Allied Artists of America (NYC, 1940); and Salons of America (NYC). Dixon’s solo exhibitions included Babcock Galleries (NYC, 1926 and 1927); Women's University Club...

The artist: Henri Aime Duhem (1860-1941) French *see notes below, signed Title: Les Pecheurs Medium: signed gouache on paper, loosely laid over card, ...

The artist: Henri Aime Duhem (1860-1941) French *see notes below, signed Title: The French Landscape Medium: gouache on paper, loosely laid over card, unframed card: 9.75 x 12...

The artist: Henri Aime Duhem (1860-1941) French *see notes below, signed Title: The Diving Board Medium: gouache on paper, loosely laid over card, unframed card: 12.75 x 9.75 ...

An English watercolour on paper coastal scene signed with initials 'RS' bottom right. Presented in its original gilt wood frame under glass with trade label to the backboard from Deighton’s Strand Gallery. This gallery was well-known during the 1930s as fine art dealers and frame makers – it was located off Trafalgar square. Though he often signed with his full name Ruskin Spear's work on paper 'Hammersmith Grove' is signed in the same initials as our work and hence the attribution. This work is also stylistically similar to his other drawings of seascapes and coastal landscapes. This is a charming and fresh view of a coastal landscape probably the Jurassic coast of Dorset or his beloved Cornwall. The vertiginous composition gives it an angular almost abstract form highlighted by the contrast between the colour of the rockface, the vegetation and the blue sea. The work is in nice condition and wonderful to have the original framing. Initially influenced by Walter Sickert, the Camden Town Group...