Hudson - Landscape Paintings

Artist Statement: Painting is a meditation and a kind of alchemy in which I concentrate and transform my feelings and memories into something material that can be experienced in var...

Artist Statement: Painting is a meditation and a kind of alchemy in which I concentrate and transform my feelings and memories into something material that can be experienced in var...

Artist Statement: Painting is a meditation and a kind of alchemy in which I concentrate and transform my feelings and memories into something material that can be experienced in var...

Artist Statement: Painting is a meditation and a kind of alchemy in which I concentrate and transform my feelings and memories into something material that can be experienced in var...

Artist Statement: Painting is a meditation and a kind of alchemy in which I concentrate and transform my feelings and memories into something material that can be experienced in var...

Peggy Cyphers “Underground Passage” 2018-21 acrylic, sand, gold leaf on canvas 91x68”. Cyphers incorporates sand painting into the figuration of this large scale abstract painting i...

Provenance: The Artist. Menikoff collection (friends of the artist) About this artist: Born in Little Italy in 1907, Gregorio Prestopino first set out to become a sign painter as the son of New York City immigrants. Instead, his talent provided a life-changing scholarship to the National Academy of Design, and for five years he studied drawing under C. W. Hawthorne. He spent the summer of 1934 at the MacDowell Colony in Peterborough, New Hampshire. His deep involvement with the colony led him to later serve as its director in 1954. Much of Prestopino’s work was in the vein of social realism. During the 1940s and 1950s he became deeply invested in portraying everyday Manhattan and Harlem scenes. He first became interested in the Ashcan school at the National Academy of Design, and remained committed to an interest in working with urban scenes. His lively treatment of people and events revealed his affinity for sixteenth-century artist Pieter Breughel. Later in his career, he focused on producing images of nudes and picturesque New Hampshire landscapes, and investigated the relationship between color and form. Prestopino exhibited at several biennials at the Corcoran Gallery, at the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Modern Art. His work was frequently shown at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, where he was awarded the Temple Gold Medal in 1946 and an additional prize in 1952. He was awarded a National Institute of Arts and Letter Grant in 1961, and in 1972 the National Academy of Design awarded him the Altman Figure Painting Award. Prestopino’s artistic cache skyrocketed when Life magazine published his images from New York’s maximum security institution Green Haven as part of its “Prison Series” in 1957. That same year his paintings and sketches of urban life were featured in the short film Harlem Wednesday. Directed by John and Faith Hubley...

A modernist coastal/dock scene by Edward Christiana. This painting is hand-signed "Edward Chrstiana '52" lower right. Exhibited: 1946 Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute; 9th Annual Exhibition 2004 Jameson Gallery, Portland, Maine; Edward Christiana (1912-1992) More about this artist: Edward Christiana was born in White Plains, New York in 1912. After high school the artist enrolled at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York, graduating in 1933. After returning to the Mohawk Valley and obtaining work he enrolled in the School of Related Arts and Sciences at Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute. In 1940, noted WPA artist William Palmer came to MWPAI to establish the School of Art, forerunner of the current Pratt at MWPAI. Mr.Christiana became involved with the School almost immediately and studied from 1941 until 1943 under Mr. Palmer, at which point he became an instructor himself and remained in this capacity until 1982. It was apparent at a very early stage in the development of Ed Christiana as an artist that he had a tremendous facility in the difficult medium of watercolor. By 1945, he had exhibited with the American Watercolor Society and did so again in 1947, 1949, and 1950. Mr. Christiana was even awarded the coveted William Church Osborne Purchase Prize in 1949 and 1950. He had his first one-man show at the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute in 1946, and would be so honored twice more; in 1954, and culminating with a major retrospective in 1989. By 1949 he was elected to the American Watercolor Society. He was represented in a group show at the Kraushaar Galleries in New York in 1951 and in another major one-man show at the Albany Institute of History and Art in 1956 where he received a purchase prize in oil. Strangely, after all of his early success in watercolor, he abandoned the medium in the early 50's to concentrate on oil painting. For over two decades he painted primarily in oil ranging from cubist inspired studies to his Marsden Hartley-inspired paintings of Mount Katahdin in the 1970's. By the mid 70's he had returned to watercolor. He was once quoted as saying "those who are familiar with my old paintings will be aware, I am sure, that in fact, they were not so far removed from watercolor, my technique in oils deriving positively from the aqueous medium." In the 1970's his watercolor style changed from the more wet and spontaneous style of the 40's to a dryer, slightly more controlled style, where the artist would often paint on dry paper, without wetting it prior to the application of paint. In the early 80's he returned to a wetter style, even more spontaneous than his method in the 40's. This culminated in his abstract work of the late 80's inspired partly by John Marin. Also, like Marin, Christiana painted representational work alongside very abstract work during the same period. Fellow artist Easton Pribble once said of Ed Christiana "If there were to be an honorary title -Painter Laureate- of the Mohawk Valley, Edward Christiana would certainly be the prime qualifier for that distinction." Christiana is known for his landscape views of the Mohawk Valley, her wild natural beauty as well as the architectural beauty of her towns and cities. He has also painted extensively in the Adirondacks as well as New Hampshire, Vermont, and especially Maine, which can almost be considered the artist's second home. He loved to paint the pastures, valleys, rivers, and waterfalls of the area as well as children playing on the grounds of his beloved Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute and the neighborhoods surrounding it in Utica, New York. Edward Christiana painted almost right until his death in 1992. He was and still is a beloved man. No one I have talked to has had an unkind word to say about Ed Christiana, either as a teacher, artist, or friend. He was a prolific artist and was known to hand paint Christmas and Birthday cards...

This work epitomizes Prestopino's interest in social realism which captures a quiet interlude in the everyday life of an "everyman." It also provides a contrast for our expectations as we view a tough, blue collar worker, with no one watching, as he sings a melody to the birds. In an original frame measuring 49" x 39" x 3.25" Provenance: Edith Halpert's Downtown Gallery (label verso from 13 w. 113th street, where the gallery was located from 1926 until 1939) Private collection, NYC, c. 1935 By descent About this artist: Born in Little Italy in 1907, Gregorio Prestopino first set out to become a sign painter as the son of New York City immigrants. Instead, his talent provided a life-changing scholarship to the National Academy of Design, and for five years he studied drawing under C. W. Hawthorne. He spent the summer of 1934 at the MacDowell Colony in Peterborough, New Hampshire. His deep involvement with the colony led him to later serve as its director in 1954. Much of Prestopino’s work was in the vein of social realism. During the 1940s and 1950s he became deeply invested in portraying everyday Manhattan and Harlem scenes. He first became interested in the Ashcan school at the National Academy of Design, and remained committed to an interest in working with urban scenes. His lively treatment of people and events revealed his affinity for sixteenth-century artist Pieter Breughel...