Antoine Blanchard

Café de la Paix, L’Opera, Paris

Jean Salabet French, 20th Century Vue du Sacre Coeur, Paris Jean Salabet was a School of Paris painter know for his colorful Parisian cityscapes. His work is comparable to those of ...

Jean Salabet French, 20th Century Marche de Fleurs, La Madeleine Paris Jean Salabet was a School of Paris painter know for his colorful Parisia...

Frank Vincent Dumond American, 1865-1931 Sunny Hedge Oil on canvas Signed "F.V. DuMond," lower right 24.5 in. by 29 in. W/frame 32.5 by 37 in. Born in Rochester, New York in 1865, Frank DuMond left his work as an illustrator at age 23 to study in the rigorous classical atelier tradition of the Academie Julian Paris in 1888.  Upon his return to New York in 1892, DuMond embarked on a painting and teaching term at the Art Students League spanning nearly six decades until his death. A painter of diverse talents, he was an accomplished landscape, portrait and still life painter, muralist, and leader of the Tonalist then Impressionist art colonies of Lyme, Connecticut.  In particular, DuMond was noted for his use of landscape green.  American Impressionist expert William H. Gerdts wrote of DuMond, "As one might speak of Velazquez's blacks, one must speak of DuMond's greens."  Scholars have described him as a deft painter of the American Impressionist landscape and the figure, but he will perhaps be remembered as among the most outstanding educators in American art history.  Though an accomplished painter, he is said to have considered himself more of an educator than an artist. By all accounts, DuMond is described by his students as a man whose art and teaching methods were based on deeply held religious and philosophical beliefs.  One student recalls, "There were occasions when DuMond revealed a clear intent to educate us on a deeper level than might casually be associated with painting."  His students remember him fondly as "a genial, generous, and perceptive instructor…whose warmth and kindness pervaded everything he did."  Under his tutelage, many prominent American artists were brought to recognition, including Georgia O'Keeffe, Norman Rockwell, and John Marin.  Still other protégés of DuMond renown became influential teachers, such as Baroque-style painter Frank Mason, whose influence emerged in New York at the Art Students League; and Arthur Maynard...

Edward Francis Rook American, 1870-1960 Brittany Oil on Canvas 30 by 30 in. W/frame 38 by 38 in. Signed lower left Circa, 1898-1900 Rook, born in New York City on September 21, 1870, became one of the most original impressionists at Old Lyme. First he was a student of Benjamin Constant and Jean-Paul Laurens at the Académie Julian.  Life started out to be rather promising for Rook, around the turn of the century.  He exhibited at the Cincinnati Art Museum and at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, both in 1898, when his harbor scene, entitled Pearl Clouds — Moonlight was reproduced in International Studio, in April.  In addition, the PAFA presented him with the Temple Gold Medal for Deserted Street, Moonlight, which the Academy purchased.  Three years later, Rook was awarded a bronze medal at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, where he exhibited three landscapes.  Caffin (1902, p. xxxvi) praised the artist's "translucent quality of color," which suggests a study of color theory.  Also in 1901, Rook married Edith Sone.  For most of 1902, the Rooks were in Mexico. Rook came to Old Lyme in October of 1903.  The date is significant because Childe Hassam was also there that month.  Hassam would more or less re-orient the artists' colony from Tonalism to impressionism.  Rook would move there permanently two years later.  He took two medals at the St. Louis Universal Exposition (1904) where his landscapes from the Mexican trip were displayed.  More awards followed: a silver medal at the International Fine Arts Exposition in Buenos Aires, 1910, a gold medal at San Francisco's Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915,  a Corcoran Bronze Medal, and a William A. Clark Award in 1919 for Peonies.   By 1924, the artist was made a National Academician.  Despite all these awards and recognition, Rook did little in the way of selling his art and reportedly, his prices were too high.  His paintings were handled by Macbeth and Grand Central Art Galleries. Rook was active in Old Lyme's art community.  As stated above, he would have met Hassam that October in 1903 but Willard Metcalf had departed at the end of the summer.  As several writers have explained (Connecticut and American Impressionism, 1980, p. 123), Hassam "was the catalyst around whom [impressionism] coalesced."   Rook's niece, Virginia Rook Garver, who happened to be the grand-niece of Hassam, confirmed that Rook and Hassam knew each other in Europe — before they went to Old Lyme (Fischer, 1987, p. 19).  Rook was one of the relatively young painters to come to Old Lyme, along with Gifford Beal, William Chadwick, and Robert Nisbet, on the wave of impressionism, initiated there by Hassam and Metcalf.  Old Lyme became a center of American impressionism, and as Donelson F. Hoopes remarked, "under Hassam, the shoreline of Connecticut became a kind of Giverny of America."  Among Ranger's group, palettes started to become lighter, except those of the most determined tonalists.  Ranger himself, perhaps admitting defeat, moved to Noank in 1904.  Rook is best known for his views of Bradbury's Mill, which was soon called Rook's Mill, owing to the painter's many versions of the scene.  One, called Swirling Waters, dated ca. 1917, is in the Lyme Historical Society.  Even more famous is Rook's Laurel, dated between 1905 and 1910 (Florence Griswold Museum), in which a profuse laurel bush (the state flower), is set off by a spectacular Constable-like background.  But Swirling Waters could never be confused with Constable, with its violent brushwork, impasto-layered water, and bright, almost chalky, plein-air palette.  Gerdts (1984, p. 226) compares the paintings of Walter...

Kevin Weckbach's (US based) "Quiet Woods" is an original, hand made oil painting that depicts a grassy hill of overgrown foliage, where white Aspens spread...

Bright sunny blues and colorful water reflections fill "Boats On The Beach, Bretagne," an exceptional oil painted on location in Brittany by Maria Bertran, this Contemporary Impre...

Gustaf Fjaestad (Fjæstad) (1868-1948) Sweden Study of Tufts signed "G. A. Fjaestad," both recto and verso. oil on artist's sketching board (Wilhelm Becker, Stockholm) unframed 32.7...

Mid-century New York City is represented as a moment in time. The artist populates his scene with isolated figures that are more shapes of people as opposed to specific individuals....