Charles Blondin

Marche des Fleurs Devant La Madeline

Charles Blondin French, 1913-1991 Aux Cafe Oil on canvas Signed lower right 11 by 14 in. W/frame 16 by 19 in. A "School of Paris" artist during the mid-20th century, Charles Blond...

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...

Nicolas Alexandrovitch Tarkhoff Russian, 1871-1930 The Coming Storm Oil on board 12 ¾ by 19 in, w/ frame 19 ¼ by 25 ½ in Signed lower right Was a Russian-born Impressionist. Born in Moscow on January 20, 1871 to a merchant family he studied painting and drawing. Tarkhoff was known as the “Moscow Parisian,” because he spent so much of his life in France -- from 1898 until his death in 1930. A member of the World of Art and the Union of Russian Artists, Tarkhoff began drawing at the age of twenty-four. After an unsuccessful attempt to enroll at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, he studied under Konstantin Korovin. At the age of twenty-eight, Tarkhoff made his first visit to Paris, where he studied drawing and began actively working and exhibiting. He moved there permanently in 1899. In 1906, he held a one-man show at the gallery of Ambroise Vollard, the famous Parisian art dealer who championed all the leading French Impressionists. Sergei Makovsky, Alexander Benois...

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...

Signed lower left, dimensions listed include the frame. Joseph Wolins was born in Atlantic City, New Jersey in 1915. He studied at the National Academy of Design from 1935 to 1941 un...

Red Barn Near Foothills - Landscape in Oil on Canvas A beautiful pastoral scene of a red barn near the foothills by Nellie M. Hodgson (American, 20th Century). A barn is nestled in ...

Petit Pont-Neuf - Pont Saint-Michel Paris Bridge at Night Original Oil on Linen Pont Saint-Michel Paris Bridge at Nigh by an unknown artist, signed illegibly and possibly H. Pierrot ...

The Artists Country Home Rodgau Germany Original Oil on Linen 1944 Oil painting of the German Countryside circa 1944 by an anonymous artist. (German, 19th-20th C). Well painted of a...