USA - Landscape Drawings and Watercolors

Original watercolor over graphite under drawing of the harbor with sailboats in Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic by the American artist, Wilmot Emerton Heitland. Signed “Heitland” lower right by the artist. Condition is excellent. Circa 1930. Under UV plexiglass. A similar painting of the same harbor done in 1924 by Wilmot Heitland is in the permanent collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. The artwork is housed in a light blue laminate frame with navy blue mat. Overall framed measurements are 25 by 31 inches. Provenance: A Sarasota, Florida estate. Born 1893 in Wisconsin, Wilmot Emerton Heitland was an illustrator and painter trained at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. For a time, he was president of the American Watercolor Society. He also painted numerous illustrations depicting high society that were published in magazines such as: Collier’s, Women’s Home Companion, Cosmopolitan, and McCall’s, throughout the 20s, 30s, and 40s. Later, Heitland moved on to paint and teach at the Art Club. His paintings can be found in the collections of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts; the Brooklyn Museum; the Art Institute of Chicago; the Philadelphia Museum of Art; and locally at the Museum of Fine Arts, William R. Hough and Co., Stetson College of Law Library, and the Poynter Institute. Heitland moved to St. Petersburg because of the active Art Club here. He had a solo show of his work at the Art Club in 1963, and served as the exhibition chairman in 1964. He died in 1969. Overview San Felipe de Puerto Plata is the capital of the Puerto Plata province on the Dominican Republic’s Atlantic north coast. The city is best known for its beaches. Playa Dorada’s lengthy beachfront is backed by resorts and an 18-hole golf course. The city’s old colonial-era center is dominated by the 16th-century Fortaleza San Felipe, a Spanish fortress that now houses historical and military artifacts.

Robert Strati is an American artist who creates multimedia artworks using broken plates. His recent series “Fragmented” started when he accidentally dropped and broke a porcelain pla...

Frank Nelson Wilcox (American, 1887–1964) Riders Near Camel Rock Monument, Santa Fe, New Mexico, c. 1937 Watercolor on paper Monogram lower right, titled verso 14.5 x 20 inches 18....

Frank Nelson Wilcox (American, 1887–1964) Canyon at Evening, 1937 Watercolor on paper Signed and dated lower right 14 x 19 inches 18.75 x 24 inches, framed Frank Nelson Wilcox (Oc...

Frank Nelson Wilcox (American, 1887–1964) Wild Horses, Arizona, 1937 Watercolor on paper Signed and dated lower right, titled verso 15 x 20 inches 18 x 24 inches framed Frank Nelso...

Frank Nelson Wilcox (American, 1887–1964) Rio Puerco, New Mexico, c. 1940-1 Watercolor on paper Monogram lower right 15 x 20 inches 18.5 x 24 inches framed Frank Nelson Wilcox (O...

Frank Nelson Wilcox (American, 1887–1964) Flats Near Isleta, c. 1937 Watercolor on paper Signed lower right, titled verso 14.5 x 20 inches 18.5 x 24 inches framed Frank Nelson Wil...

Frank Nelson Wilcox (American, 1887–1964) The Colorado At Needles, California, c. 1950 Watercolor on paper Monogram lower right, titled verso 14.5 x 20 inches 18.5 x 24 inches fram...

Frank Nelson Wilcox (American, 1887–1964) Sun Drenched Pueblo, c. 1950 Watercolor on paper Monogram lower right 15 x 20 inches 18.5 x 24 inches framed "All these things are, of co...

A Stunning Mid-Century Modern Cubist Watercolor, Harbor Scene & Rooftops by Noted Chicago Artist, Rudolph T. Pen. A vivid European harbor scene, depicting the whitewashed buildings ...

Gorgeous mid century watercolor seascape of Near Point, at Mansion Overlook, Carmel, California by Margaret Wherry Ziegler (American, 1909-1989), c.1960. Signed "M.W. Ziegler" lower right. Presented in rustic black frame. Image size, 12"H x 22"L. Margaret Zeigler studied art at the Cincinnati Art Academy, Minneapolis Art...

Frank Nelson Wilcox (American, 1887-1964) Cormorant Rock, Gaspé, Canada Watercolor on Whatman board Signed lower right 22 x 30 inches 29 x 37.5 inches Frank Nelson Wilcox (October 3, 1887 – April 17, 1964) was a modernist American artist and a master of watercolor. Wilcox is described as the "Dean of Cleveland School painters," though some sources give this appellation to Henry Keller or Frederick Gottwald. Wilcox was born on October 3, 1887 to Frank Nelson Wilcox, Sr. and Jessie Fremont Snow Wilcox at 61 Linwood Street in Cleveland, Ohio. His father, a prominent lawyer, died at home in 1904 shortly before Wilcox' 17th birthday. His brother, lawyer and publisher Owen N. Wilcox, was president of the Gates Legal Publishing Company or The Gates Press. His sister Ruth Wilcox was a respected librarian. In 1906 Wilcox enrolled from the Cleveland School of Art under the tutelage of Henry Keller, Louis Rorimer...

Thunderstorm over Boston. July 14, 1930. Ink and watercolor on paper. 10 5/8 x 17 5/8 (sheet 12 x 19 1/4). Signed and dated and titled in ink, lower right; titled verso and annotated...

Big Sur Coast Landscape in Watercolor on Paper Serene coastal landscape by notable artist Paul Dougherty (American, 1877-1947). The viewer looks out ov...

Maitland de Gogorza, born in Asbury Park, New Jersey, in 1896, studied art at Pratt Institute and the Art Students League. Before joining the Smith College faculty in 1929, de Gogorz...

One of several prominent women associated with the artistic life of Cincinnati at the turn of the century, Annie G. Sykes was recognized for her colorful, Impressionist-inspired watercolors. Throughout her long and successful career, she explored a variety of themes ranging from landscapes, flowers and the figure to the picturesque scenery of New England, Europe and Bermuda. Sykes was born Annie Sullings Gooding in Brookline, Massachusetts. Her father, Josiah Gooding, was a silversmith and engraver, and her mother, Ann, was a gifted needle-worker. Stimulated by the example of her parents, Sykes developed an interest in art during her childhood, honing her skills as a draftsman in art classes at school by drawing flowers, trees and other natural forms. She initiated her formal studies at the Lowell Institute in Boston in 1875, attending drawing classes there until 1878, when she enrolled at the school of the Museum of Fine Arts. Sykes is believed to have studied at the museum school until her marriage to Gerritt Sykes in 1882. Following her nuptials, Sykes and her husband moved to Cincinnati, at that time a flourishing cultural center dubbed the "Queen City of the West." While Gerritt and a friend established the Franklin School for boys, Sykes continued to follow her artistic inclinations. Desirous of refining her skills, she enrolled at the Cincinnati Art Academy in 1884. Throughout the next ten years, she continued her training under such noted American painters as Frank Duveneck and Thomas Satterwhite Noble. Although she occasionally worked in oil, watercolor became Sykes' favorite medium of expression. Despite the birth of two children--Milly in 1885 and Anne in 1888--Sykes successfully balanced the demands of home and family with her professional aspirations. She began contributing to the annual exhibitions of the Boston Art Club in 1890 and the New York Watercolor Club the following year. In 1892, she became a charter member of the Woman's Art Club of Cincinnati, where she would exhibit regularly until 1923. In 1895, Sykes had her first solo show at the Traxel & Maas Gallery in Cincinnati, exhibiting a group of her watercolors. Local critics praised her fresh, vibrant colors and her spontaneous technique, and in a review in the Cincinnati Enquirer she was identified as representing "the new school of impressionism." Sykes's longstanding relationship with the Cincinnati Art Museum began that same year, when she first participated in that institution's annual shows. Indeed, between 1895 and 1926, she would exhibit there on forty-two occasions. Sykes also had a show (with Emma Mendenhall) at the Cinncinati Art Museum in 1908, and a three-person exhibition (with Emma Mendenhall and Dixie Selden) two years later. Sykes's work was also featured in the annual watercolor shows at the Art Institute of Chicago, the Philadelphia Water Color Club and the Ohio Water Color Society. Her numerous professional affiliations included the National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors in New York and the Cincinnati Museum Association. Her standing among her peers was such that she was often invited to serve juries of selection, along with such eminent painters as Duveneck, Noble, Maurice Prendergast and Edward Redfield. Prior to 1900, Sykes' was active in and around Boston, Cincinnati, and in Nonquitt, Massachusetts, where her family had a summer home. After the turn of the century, she spent many summers in Cape Porpoise...

Crash Course, Original Contemporary Impressionist Landscape Painting 8" x 8" (HxW) Pastel on Paper Hand-signed by the artist. This modern impressionist seascape features a square co...

Charles De Wolf Brownell (American, 1822 - 1909) Watercolor on paper depicting a pumpkin on a flowering vine Hand dated and inscribed "Lyme ...

A lovely original watercolor of a cottage by the sea, showing a fisherman draping his nets over the porch rail to dry. I would guess this to be earl...

Judith Yellin She has exhibited at: Ben-Uri Gallery, London Nora Gallery, Jerusalem Atelier 97, Tel-Aviv The Artists House, Jerusalem Katz Gallery, Tel-Aviv Ezry Gallery, Jerusalem Stern Gallery, Paris Old Jaffa...

Harvest Moon 12:32pm is a watercolor work on paper by Cynthia MacCollum. This original artwork is 12x9 on archival paper. It is currently framed to 14 x 11. It was part of a 2020 ...

Artist: Bart Perry (American, 1906-1992) Title: Landscape Year: Circa 1950 Medium: Pastel Paper: Sketch Image size: 14 x 17 inches paper size: 14 x 17 inches Signature: Signed lower right Condition: Very good Frame: Framed in a custom wooden gold frame, with gold color bevel. About the artist. Bart Perry studied at the California School of Fine Arts, MFA, 1928. Fine Arts, Mills College, Berkeley, CA. 1955. Selected Exhibitions: Lucien Labaudt Gallery with Wm. Mayo, 1946; California School of Fine Arts, Roy DeForest, Relf Case, Richard Brodney...

Yen Ha is an architect, artist and writer. Born in Saigon, she lives in New York City. Ha has been awarded residencies by the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativi...

Modern original oil pastel on archival paper of a rooftop view of buildings and New York harbor by the Swedish born American artist, Carl Sprinchorn. ...

This delicate botanical drawing is made with 14 karat gold on painted black paper. The exploration of ephemerality, and the fragility of a dandelion gone to seed, its leaves and buds...

Charcoal on paper drawing by Toronto-based artist Katherine Curci. From her "Irrepressible" series. Comes framed. Lake Pleasant, Phoenix, AZ Katherine Curci began this series of ch...

A waterclolor and gouache painting depicting a traditional Parisian street scne on paper by French artist Eugene Galien-Laloue. Presented in an appropriate frame and signed in the lo...

Jim’s of Lambertville is proud to offer this artwork by: Gershon Benjamin (1899-1985) An American Modernist of portraits, landscapes, still lives, and the urban scene, Gershon Ben...

ARTHUR WESLEY DOW (American 1857-1922) IPSWICH SHANTIES ca. 1892 ink wash on paper, 13 7/8 x 11 inches (sheet). Signed lower left “Arthur W Dow”. Ex. co...

This artwork "Landscape with Lake" C.1940 is a pastel on paper by noted Russian/Canadian artist Alexander (Alexandre) Bercovitch, 1891-1951. It is signed at the lower right corner by the artist. The artwork size is 17 x 23.25 inches, framed is 23.75 x 30.15 inches. The artwork is in excellent condition, the frame is damaged and will be replaced by a new similar or better frame before shipping. About the artist. Alexander Bercovitch was born in Kherson, Russia in 1891. In 1926 he moved to Montreal, Canada. He is known for a vibrant, expressionist painting style. His landscapes also show the strong influence of impressionism. His mediums are pastel, gouache, watercolour and oil. As a child he apprenticing in icon-painting with monks. He also studied at Jerusalem's Art School of Bezalel, the Munich Academy of Fine Arts, and the Bakst-Dobujiinsky school and Stiglitz Academy, both in St. Petersburg. He worked in Odessa and Moscow painting stage decorations, before moving to Turkestan to teach art. He was influenced by the German Symbolist Franz von Stuck, as well as David Burliuk, co-founder of the Russian Primitivist movement and Wassily Kandinsky. After moving to Montreal he worked in decorative painting and set design. In 1927 he participated in the annual Spring Show of the Art Association of Montreal, and in 1933 held his first solo exhibition. He is a founding member of The Eastern Group of Painters and the Contemporary Arts Society (CAS), associating with Louis Muhlstock, John Lyman, Jack Humphrey, Philip Surrey...

Masterful Scottish watercolor landscape of Loch Tay with boats and small figures on the short by Aaron Edwin Penley (English, 1826-1897)....

"A Shady Runlet" Stream in Fall New Jersey Watercolor 1878 A rare and exceptional watercolor of two ladies viewing a New Jersey stream in fall by William C. Bauer (American, 1856- 1...

Sunday Drive, Original Impressionist Landscape Painting 8" x 10" (HxW) Pastel on Paper Hand-signed by the artist. Journey down a desolate road amongst a beautiful green landscape of...

Mason has extensive knowledge of hunting, fishing, and the outdoors. This knowledge gives him the ability to be able to depict these wildlife scenes with accuracy. Being raised on a ...

"Three Pyramids + Blue Ball" is a gouache on paper by Alexander Calder. The work is signed in the lower right, "Calder 73”. Although renowned for his innovative and groundbreaking sculptures, Alexander Calder started his artistic career as an abstract painter, preferring to use gouache. What is gouache? Gouache is a water-soluble paint – a type of opaque watercolor. As Calder returned to gouache painting towards the end of his life, he was now armed with a lifetime of experience as a sculptor. He explored the three-dimensional vocabulary of sculptural forms he had developed onto the two-dimensional surface of the paper. Certain shapes and colors recur throughout his gouaches and sculptures. Circles, ovals, and other geometric forms dominate the space. There is the same sense of energy and fluidity. The shapes do not sit on the surface but vibrate giving a feeling of movement in contrast to the static nature of painting. Like his sculpture, Calder’s gouache...

Gorgeous mid century fauvist watercolor landscape with lush, vivid trees and distant houses by Emily Shotwell Goeller-Wood (American, 1887-1965). Presented in a rustic giltwood frame...

RUSS HAVARD Artist Statement I'm drawn towards nature imagery that depicts isolated elements in their continual struggle to flourish under desolate circumstances. The seemingly bleak...

Delightful watercolour by the noted illustrator Montague Birrell Black (1884-1964) & dated 1952 depicting an English country house & gardens Art Sz: 9 1/2"H x 16"W Frame Sz: 15 1/2...

Oil Tanks, Alameda Street, Los Angeles, c. 1930-33, watercolor on paper, 14 ¼ x 21 ¼ inches (image), inscribed verso: “watercolor by Ruth Zimmerman 1912 – 1968 / Practice work for sc...

Jennifer Losch Bartlett Ocean piece: Untitled painting studies, 1975 Ink and pastel, mixed media on graph paper Boldly signed and dated "Summer 75" by Jennifer Bartlett on the lower right front Frame included: held in a museum quality wood frame with UV plexiglass Ink and pastel on graph paper drawing. Boldly signed and dated "Summer 75" by Jennifer Bartlett on the lower right front. Some of the artist's annotations on the drawings say: Ocean piece Sky Water Beach Sometimes looking from water maybe see mountain two people on beach lying down sometimes they face each other ... bwhitefree hand drawing from water beach w/ towel sky sand water on a diagonal on a curve sky water sand...

Jim’s of Lambertville is proud to offer this artwork by: Gershon Benjamin (1899-1985) An American Modernist of portraits, landscapes, still lives, and the urban scene, Gershon Benj...

Cuban, b. 1974 Antonio Espinosa is a Cuban Postwar & Contemporary artist born in Manzanillo, Cuba in 1974. He graduated from the Instituto Superior de Arte (University of Arts of Cu...

"Welsh Coast at Ogmore" by the Sea Original Watercolor Grey tones dominate this rocky coastal painting by John Addyman (Wales, 1929-2006), characterized by his use of muted tones, pr...

Frank Nelson Wilcox (American, 1887–1964) Two Old Pecan Trees, 1932 Watercolor on paper mounted on board Signed lower right 21 x 28.25 inches 27 x 35.25 inches, as framed Exhibited: 1932 May Show (1st Place) Cleveland Museum of Art; Poetics of Place: Charles Burchfield and His Contemporaries, 2001 Cleveland Artist's Foundation. Frank Nelson Wilcox (October 3, 1887 – April 17, 1964) was a modernist American artist and a master of watercolor. Wilcox is described as the "Dean of Cleveland School painters," though some sources give this appellation to Henry Keller or Frederick Gottwald. Wilcox was born on October 3, 1887 to Frank Nelson Wilcox, Sr. and Jessie Fremont Snow Wilcox at 61 Linwood Street in Cleveland, Ohio. His father, a prominent lawyer, died at home in 1904 shortly before Wilcox' 17th birthday. His brother, lawyer and publisher Owen N. Wilcox, was president of the Gates Legal Publishing Company or The Gates Press. His sister Ruth Wilcox was a respected librarian. In 1906 Wilcox enrolled from the Cleveland School of Art under the tutelage of Henry Keller, Louis Rorimer, and Frederick Gottwald. He also attended Keller's Berlin Heights summer school from 1909. After graduating in 1910, Wilcox traveled and studied in Europe, sometimes dropping by Académie Colarossi in the evening to sketch the model or the other students at their easels, where he was influenced by French impressionism. Wilcox was influenced by Keller's innovative watercolor techniques, and from 1910 to 1916 they experimented together with impressionism and post-impressionism. Wilcox soon developed his own signature style in the American Scene or Regionalist tradition of the early 20th century. He joined the Cleveland School of Art faculty in 1913. Among his students were Lawrence Edwin Blazey, Carl Gaertner, Paul Travis, and Charles E. Burchfield. Around this time Wilcox became associated with Cowan Pottery. In 1916 Wilcox married fellow artist Florence Bard, and they spent most of their honeymoon painting in Berlin Heights with Keller. They had one daughter, Mary. In 1918 he joined the Cleveland Society of Artists, a conservative counter to the Bohemian Kokoon Arts Club, and would later serve as its president. He also began teaching night school at the John Huntington Polytechnic Institute at this time, and taught briefly at Baldwin-Wallace College. Wilcox wrote and illustrated Ohio Indian Trails in 1933, which was favorably reviewed by the New York Times in 1934. This book was edited and reprinted in 1970 by William A. McGill. McGill also edited and reprinted Wilcox' Canals of the Old Northwest in 1969. Wilcox also wrote, illustrated, and published Weather Wisdom in 1949, a limited edition (50 copies) of twenty-four serigraphs (silk screen prints) accompanied by commentary "based upon familiar weather observations commonly made by people living in the country." Wilcox displayed over 250 works at Cleveland's annual May Show. He received numerous awards, including the Penton Medal for The Omnibus, Paris (1920), Fish Tug on Lake Erie (1921), Blacksmith Shop (1922), and The Gravel Pit (1922). Other paintings include The Trailing Fog (1929), Under the Big Top (1930), and Ohio Landscape...

5125 Antique charcoal drawing of a landscape as viewed from the Charles River in Boston from 1827 Signed J.G.Berry

Artist Commentary: This painting was generated purely by imagination and imagery that I am drawn to. Keywords: Landscape & nature Artist Biography: Judith grew up 15 miles north o...

Hungarian/American artist/illustrator depicts a charming scene of sledding in the snow in Central Park. The work is abstract in its design as it's functional in its narrative - Unpublished New Yorker...

On verso: Original - A. Lassell Ripley / By – (D.R.) –

Francis Chapin was one of the most celebrated painters in Chicago during his lifetime. When he was a young art student, Valley House founder, Donald Vogel, painted with "Chape" on th...

This artwork titled "St Emilion" c.1970, is a watercolor by American artist Wayne Ensrud, b.1934. It is signed at the lower right side by the artist. The artwork size is 19 x 24 inches, framed size is 22.75 x 27.5 inches. Custom framed in a wooden ornate gold frame. It is in excellent condition. About the artist:. Wayne Ensrud was born in Minnesota where he received his BFA from the Minneapolis Institute of Art. As a student he met Oskar Kokoschka, the artist-in-residence at the Institute, who profoundly influenced Ensrud's work and has remained his friend and mentor ever since. When Pablo Casals conducted his Master Class Series at Berkeley. Wayne Ensrud had the honor ot being invited to execute drawings of the great cellist during those sessions. and this year when the New York Chamber Society celebrated its 10th anniversary.Ensrud was asked to sit in on rehearsals and sketch the world famous violinists ltzhak Perlman and Pinchas Zukerman. Actress Jayne Mansfield, novelist Alex Waugh, wine connoisseur Alexis Lichine are among others who have been portrayed by Ensrud. Mr. Ensrud has been a free-lance art director and animator for ABC, CBS, and IRM IBM contracted him to he the series, "Computer and the Mind of Man", which has been translated into 18 languages and won several international awards. For ABC he created the film animations for the Gemini Space Programs. He taught film animation at Pratt Institute for tour years. Ensrud was Art Director at the University of California at Berkeley for the Department of Motion Pictures and Television and he was Executive Art Director of Channel 13-TV, New York City. Mr. Ensrud has art directed over 30 films and lust completed a film for television starring Richard Basehart. He has illustrated the writings of Odgen Nash, John O'Hara, and John Fowles...

Jim’s of Lambertville is proud to offer this artwork by: Gershon Benjamin (1899-1985) An American Modernist of portraits, landscapes, still lives, and the urban scene, Gershon Benj...

Watercolor and pencil on buff wove watercolor paper, 10 x 8 inches (255 x 203 mm). In good condition with overall minor toning. Some watercolor paint splatters on the verso, contem...

Daniel Newman, American (1927 - 1994) - Bare Landscape, Year: circa 1960, Medium: Watercolor on Paper, signed lower right, Size: 11 x 20 in. (27.94 x 50.8 cm)

Lois Dodd Untitled Landscape, 1990 Colored chalk on grey wove paper Signed, dated and inscribed "For Beverly & Howard", lower right. Original artist's frame included This unique work...

Hailey Lever, 'St. Astruell, England', watercolor, 1910. Signed in pencil, lower right. Titled and dated on the original inside mat. A fine spontaneous work, with fresh colors, on cr...

Oscar Bluemner was a German and an American, a trained architect who read voraciously in art theory, color theory, and philosophy, a writer of art criticism both in German and English, and, above all, a practicing artist. Bluemner was an intense man, who sought to express and share, through drawing and painting, universal emotional experience. Undergirded by theory, Bluemner chose color and line for his vehicles; but color especially became the focus of his passion. He was neither abstract artist nor realist, but employed the “expressional use of real phenomena” to pursue his ends. (Oscar Bluemner, from unpublished typescript on “Modern Art” for Camera Work, in Bluemner papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, as cited and quoted in Jeffrey R. Hayes, Oscar Bluemner [1991], p. 60. The Bluemner papers in the Archives [hereafter abbreviated as AAA] are the primary source for Bluemner scholars. Jeffrey Hayes read them thoroughly and translated key passages for his doctoral dissertation, Oscar Bluemner: Life, Art, and Theory [University of Maryland, 1982; UMI reprint, 1982], which remains the most comprehensive source on Bluemner. In 1991, Hayes published a monographic study of Bluemner digested from his dissertation and, in 2005, contributed a brief essay to the gallery show at Barbara Mathes, op. cit.. The most recent, accessible, and comprehensive view of Bluemner is the richly illustrated, Barbara Haskell, Oscar Bluemner: A Passion for Color, exhib. cat. [New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 2005.]) Bluemner was born in the industrial city of Prenzlau, Prussia, the son and grandson of builders and artisans. He followed the family predilection and studied architecture, receiving a traditional and thorough German training. He was a prize-winning student and appeared to be on his way to a successful career when he decided, in 1892, to emigrate to America, drawn perhaps by the prospect of immediate architectural opportunities at the Chicago World’s Fair, but, more importantly, seeking a freedom of expression and an expansiveness that he believed he would find in the New World. The course of Bluemner’s American career proved uneven. He did indeed work as an architect in Chicago, but left there distressed at the formulaic quality of what he was paid to do. Plagued by periods of unemployment, he lived variously in Chicago, New York, and Boston. At one especially low point, he pawned his coat and drafting tools and lived in a Bowery flophouse, selling calendars on the streets of New York and begging for stale bread. In Boston, he almost decided to return home to Germany, but was deterred partly because he could not afford the fare for passage. He changed plans and direction again, heading for Chicago, where he married Lina Schumm, a second-generation German-American from Wisconsin. Their first child, Paul Robert, was born in 1897. In 1899, Bluemner became an American citizen. They moved to New York City where, until 1912, Bluemner worked as an architect and draftsman to support his family, which also included a daughter, Ella Vera, born in 1903. All the while, Oscar Bluemner was attracted to the freer possibilities of art. He spent weekends roaming Manhattan’s rural margins, visiting the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, and New Jersey, sketching landscapes in hundreds of small conté crayon drawings. Unlike so many city-based artists, Bluemner did not venture out in search of pristine countryside or unspoiled nature. As he wrote in 1932, in an unsuccessful application for a Guggenheim Fellowship, “I prefer the intimate landscape of our common surroundings, where town and country mingle. For we are in the habit to carry into them our feelings of pain and pleasure, our moods” (as quoted by Joyce E. Brodsky in “Oscar Bluemner in Black and White,” p. 4, in Bulletin 1977, I, no. 5, The William Benton Museum of Art, Storrs, Connecticut). By 1911, Bluemner had found a powerful muse in a series of old industrial towns, mostly in New Jersey, strung along the route of the Morris Canal. While he educated himself at museums and art galleries, Bluemner entered numerous architectural competitions. In 1903, in partnership with Michael Garven, he designed a new courthouse for Bronx County. Garven, who had ties to Tammany Hall, attempted to exclude Bluemner from financial or artistic credit, but Bluemner promptly sued, and, finally, in 1911, after numerous appeals, won a $7,000 judgment. Barbara Haskell’s recent catalogue reveals more details of Bluemner’s architectural career than have previously been known. Bluemner the architect was also married with a wife and two children. He took what work he could get and had little pride in what he produced, a galling situation for a passionate idealist, and the undoubted explanation for why he later destroyed the bulk of his records for these years. Beginning in 1907, Bluemner maintained a diary, his “Own Principles of Painting,” where he refined his ideas and incorporated insights from his extensive reading in philosophy and criticism both in English and German to create a theoretical basis for his art. Sometime between 1908 and 1910, Bluemner’s life as an artist was transformed by his encounter with the German-educated Alfred Stieglitz, proprietor of the Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession at 291 Fifth Avenue. The two men were kindred Teutonic souls. Bluemner met Stieglitz at about the time that Stieglitz was shifting his serious attention away from photography and toward contemporary art in a modernist idiom. Stieglitz encouraged and presided over Bluemner’s transition from architect to painter. During the same period elements of Bluemner’s study of art began to coalesce into a personal vision. A Van Gogh show in 1908 convinced Bluemner that color could be liberated from the constraints of naturalism. In 1911, Bluemner visited a Cézanne watercolor show at Stieglitz’s gallery and saw, in Cézanne’s formal experiments, a path for uniting Van Gogh’s expressionist use of color with a reality-based but non-objective language of form. A definitive change of course in Bluemner’s professional life came in 1912. Ironically, it was the proceeds from his successful suit to gain credit for his architectural work that enabled Bluemner to commit to painting as a profession. Dividing the judgment money to provide for the adequate support of his wife and two children, he took what remained and financed a trip to Europe. Bluemner traveled across the Continent and England, seeing as much art as possible along the way, and always working at a feverish pace. He took some of his already-completed work with him on his European trip, and arranged his first-ever solo exhibitions in Berlin, Leipzig, and Elberfeld, Germany. After Bluemner returned from his study trip, he was a painter, and would henceforth return to drafting only as a last-ditch expedient to support his family when his art failed to generate sufficient income. Bluemner became part of the circle of Stieglitz artists at “291,” a group which included Marsden Hartley, John Marin, and Arthur Dove. He returned to New York in time to show five paintings at the 1913 Armory Show and began, as well, to publish critical and theoretical essays in Stieglitz’s journal, Camera Work. In its pages he cogently defended the Armory Show against the onslaught of conservative attacks. In 1915, under Stieglitz’s auspices, Bluemner had his first American one-man show at “291.” Bluemner’s work offers an interesting contrast with that of another Stieglitz architect-turned-artist, John Marin, who also had New Jersey connections. The years after 1914 were increasingly uncomfortable. Bluemner remained, all of his life, proud of his German cultural legacy, contributing regularly to German language journals and newspapers in this country. The anti-German sentiment, indeed mania, before and during World War I, made life difficult for the artist and his family. It is impossible to escape the political agenda in Charles Caffin’s critique of Bluemner’s 1915 show. Caffin found in Bluemner’s precise and earnest explorations of form, “drilled, regimented, coerced . . . formations . . . utterly alien to the American idea of democracy” (New York American, reprinted in Camera Work, no. 48 [Oct. 1916], as quoted in Hayes, 1991, p. 71). In 1916, seeking a change of scene, more freedom to paint, and lower expenses, Bluemner moved his family to New Jersey, familiar terrain from his earlier sketching and painting. During the ten years they lived in New Jersey, the Bluemner family moved around the state, usually, but not always, one step ahead of the rent collector. In 1917, Stieglitz closed “291” and did not reestablish a Manhattan gallery until 1925. In the interim, Bluemner developed relationships with other dealers and with patrons. Throughout his career he drew support and encouragement from art cognoscenti who recognized his talent and the high quality of his work. Unfortunately, that did not pay the bills. Chronic shortfalls were aggravated by Bluemner’s inability to sustain supportive relationships. He was a difficult man, eternally bitter at the gap between the ideal and the real. Hard on himself and hard on those around him, he ultimately always found a reason to bite the hand that fed him. Bluemner never achieved financial stability. He left New Jersey in 1926, after the death of his beloved wife, and settled in South Braintree, Massachusetts, outside of Boston, where he continued to paint until his own death in 1938. As late as 1934 and again in 1936, he worked for New Deal art programs designed to support struggling artists. Bluemner held popular taste and mass culture in contempt, and there was certainly no room in his quasi-religious approach to art for accommodation to any perceived commercial advantage. His German background was also problematic, not only for its political disadvantages, but because, in a world where art is understood in terms of national styles, Bluemner was sui generis, and, to this day, lacks a comfortable context. In 1933, Bluemner adopted Florianus (definitively revising his birth names, Friedrich Julius Oskar) as his middle name and incorporated it into his signature, to present “a Latin version of his own surname that he believed reinforced his career-long effort to translate ordinary perceptions into the more timeless and universal languages of art” (Hayes 1982, p. 189 n. 1). In 1939, critic Paul Rosenfeld, a friend and member of the Stieglitz circle, responding to the difficulty in categorizing Bluemner, perceptively located him among “the ranks of the pre-Nazi German moderns” (Hayes 1991, p. 41). Bluemner was powerfully influenced in his career by the intellectual heritage of two towering figures of nineteenth-century German culture, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. A keen student of color theory, Bluemner gave pride of place to the formulations of Goethe, who equated specific colors with emotional properties. In a November 19, 1915, interview in the German-language newspaper, New Yorker Staats-Zeitung (Abendblatt), he stated: I comprehend the visible world . . . abstract the primary-artistic . . . and after these elements of realty are extracted and analyzed, I reconstruct a new free creation that still resembles the original, but also . . . becomes an objectification of the abstract idea of beauty. The first—and most conspicuous mark of this creation is . . . colors which accord with the character of things, the locality . . . [and which] like the colors of Cranach, van der Weyden, or Durer, are of absolute purity, breadth, and luminosity. . . . I proceed from the psychological use of color by the Old Masters . . . [in which] we immediately recognize colors as carriers of “sorrow and joy” in Goethe’s sense, or as signs of human relationship. . . . Upon this color symbolism rests the beauty as well as the expressiveness, of earlier sacred paintings. Above all, I recognize myself as a contributor to the new German theory of light and color, which expands Goethe’s law of color through modern scientific means (as quoted in Hayes 1991, p. 71). Hayes has traced the global extent of Bluemner’s intellectual indebtedness to Hegel (1991, pp. 36–37). More specifically, Bluemner made visual, in his art, the Hegelian world view, in the thesis and antithesis of the straight line and the curve, the red and the green, the vertical and the horizontal, the agitation and the calm. Bluemner respected all of these elements equally, painting and drawing the tension and dynamic of the dialectic and seeking ultimate reconciliation in a final visual synthesis. Bluemner was a keen student of art, past and present, looking, dissecting, and digesting all that he saw. He found precedents for his non-naturalist use of brilliant-hued color not only in the work Van Gogh and Cezanne, but also in Gauguin, the Nabis, and the Symbolists, as well as among his contemporaries, the young Germans of Der Blaue Reiter. Bluemner was accustomed to working to the absolute standard of precision required of the architectural draftsman, who adjusts a design many times until its reality incorporates both practical imperatives and aesthetic intentions. Hayes describes Bluemner’s working method, explaining how the artist produced multiple images playing on the same theme—in sketch form, in charcoal, and in watercolor, leading to the oil works that express the ultimate completion of his process (Hayes, 1982, pp. 156–61, including relevant footnotes). Because of Bluemner’s working method, driven not only by visual considerations but also by theoretical constructs, his watercolor and charcoal studies have a unique integrity. They are not, as is sometimes the case with other artists, rough preparatory sketches. They stand on their own, unfinished only in the sense of not finally achieving Bluemner’s carefully considered purpose. The present charcoal drawing is one of a series of images that take as their starting point the Morris Canal as it passed through Rockaway, New Jersey. The Morris Canal industrial towns that Bluemner chose as the points of departure for his early artistic explorations in oil included Paterson with its silk mills (which recalled the mills in the artist’s childhood home in Elberfeld), the port city of Hoboken, Newark, and, more curiously, a series of iron ore mining and refining towns, in the north central part of the state that pre-dated the Canal, harkening back to the era of the Revolutionary War. The Rockaway theme was among the original group of oil paintings that Bluemner painted in six productive months from July through December 1911 and took with him to Europe in 1912. In his painting journal, Bluemner called this work Morris Canal at Rockaway N.J. (AAA, reel 339, frames 150 and 667, Hayes, 1982, pp. 116–17), and exhibited it at the Galerie Fritz Gurlitt in Berlin in 1912 as Rockaway N. J. Alter Kanal. After his return, Bluemner scraped down and reworked these canvases. The Rockaway picture survives today, revised between 1914 and 1922, as Old Canal, Red and Blue (Rockaway River) in the collection of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D. C. (color illus. in Haskell, fig. 48, p. 65). For Bluemner, the charcoal expression of his artistic vision was a critical step in composition. It represented his own adaptation of Arthur Wesley’s Dow’s (1857–1922) description of a Japanese...

John Koch, American (1909 - 1978) - Landscape Sketch, Year: circa 1970, Medium: Graphite on Paper, Size: 13.75 x 20 in. (34.93 x 50.8 cm)