Tag: 19th century art

The 2013 Coeur d’Alene Art Auction

Armand Cabrera
by
Armand Cabrera

The 2013 Coer d’Alene Art Auction has just wrapped up pulling in a nice 28.5 million in sales for 2013. The auction is a mix of historical and contemporary western art. Peppermill Resort Spa Reno, Nevada. Of the top prices paid for paintings Howard Terpning is the only living artist included in the 5 highest sales for 2013 coming in third and fourth at 1.5 million and 900,000.


Highlights of the hammer prices  included



 
 Frederick Remington $5 million



Norman Rockwell $3.8 million




Howard Terpning $1.5 Million






Howard Terpning $900,000






Charlie Russell $600,000




You can see all of the paintings that were for sale and what prices were paid for them 

Charles Harold Davis 1856-1933

Armand Cabrera
by

Armand Cabrera

Charles Harold Davis was born in 1856 in Amesbury Massachusetts. Davis left school at the age of fifteen to become an apprentice carriage maker. After viewing a show of Barbizon paintings Davis decided to pursue art. He studied at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston for three years from 1877 to 1880. Davis then left for Paris to continue honing his ability.

 In Paris Davis studied briefly at the Academie Julian under Jules Joseph Lefebvre and Gustave Clarence Rudolphe Boulanger but after a year of study he left the academy which focused on figure painting to pursue painting the landscape outdoors. Davis decided to devote all of his time to landscape painting after painting in Normandy and the forests of Fontainebleau.

Davis moved to the small village of Fleury near Barbizon and began to show at the Salon starting in 1881. In the Paris Salon of 1887 he won an honorable mention. He also exhibited his work at the Pennsylvania Academy, the Society of American Artists and the National Academy of Design. He had his first solo Exhibition in America in 1887 at Reichard and Company New York. In 1889 he won a silver medal at the Exposition Universelle in Paris.

  In 1890 Davis returned to America permanently and settled in Mystic Connecticut. In 1895 he changed his style to a brighter palette and more vigorous brushwork.  He won the Lippincott Prize from the Pennsylvania Academy in 1901 The Altman Prize from the national Academy in 1917 and a Gold Medal at the Pan pacific Exposition in San Francisco in 1915. In 1913 he started the Mystic Art Association.


Bibliography

Paris 1889 American Artists at the universal exposition

Annette Blaugrund

Abrams 1989

Quote

 I do not think that a piece of nature in a frame though wonderfully well done is very desirable as a picture effect; eloquent arrangement, I may say is for me the first thing to strive for.

Kate Elizabeth Bunce

Armand Cabrera

By Armand Cabrera

 

Kate Bunce was born in Birmingham England in 1856. She was the second of five daughters. Her mother was Rebecca Ann Cheesewright and her father was John Thackray Bunce the editor of the Birmingham Daily Post.  Kate attended the Birmingham school of art in the 1880 and 1890’s. During her years there she won a bronze medal for her work.
Her father’s standing provided for her financially and she did not need to marry. She pursued art and never left the family home. Kate showed her work at the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists and Royal Academy starting in 1887. A devote Anglican, she stopped producing work for galleries and focused on religious work for churches instead. Kate Bunce died in 1927 at the age of seventy one.
Bibliography
 
Women Artists of the Pre-Raphaelite Movement
Jan Marsh and Pamela Gerrish Nunn

 

Verago Press Limited 1989

Lady Elizabeth Butler (ne’e Thompson)

Armand Cabrera
By Armand Cabrera
Elizabeth Thompson was born in Lausanne Switzerland in 1846. She was the oldest of two daughters of Thomas James Thompson and his second wife Christiana Weller. Her mother was an amateur artist and Elizabeth showed an interest in drawing at the age of five. The family spent their summers in the Italian Riviera and the children were home schooled. After formal studies in England the family returned to Italy where Elizabeth began study with Giuseppe Bellucci in Florence in 1869. By 1870 she was painting religious subjects and portraits of friends. She also sketched in pen and pencil and watercolor. Here sketches were mostly soldiers and men in battle.
In 1874 she submitted the painting Roll Call to the Royal Academy. The painting became a huge success for the young painter with critics and the public alike. Huge crowds gathered to see it and it was so popular the Academy sent it on tour. Multiple people bid to own it and the painting was eventually purchased by Queen Victoria. The Queen allowed engravings to be made of the image and prints were sold to the public.
Almost overnight Elizabeth became a much sought after artist. She continued to paint military subjects to great acclaim. Elizabeth made sure her paintings were as accurate as possible. Because of her fame and success many of the men who had taken place in the battles she depicted would pose for her paintings in their uniforms.
Her career changed the view of women painters and the idea of what military paintings should be about. John Ruskin who had proclaimed he thought no woman was capable of painting to a professional level publically recanted his statement after viewing Elizabeth’s work. Her paintings were not just action scenes of battles but focused on the human elements of suffering and bravery and the individuals taking part in the conflict.
In 1877 Elizabeth married Major William Butler. She had six children. Elizabeth traveled with her husband through Africa, the Middle East and Europe as he carried out his military service. After the Boer Wars (1880-81 and 1899-1902) the interest in military painting dwindled and though Elizabeth continued to paint, twentieth century taste turned away from realism to modernism.
Elizabeth Thompson Butler died in 1933 at the age of 87.
Bibliography
A Dictionary of European Genre Painting
Phillip Hook and Mark Poltimore
The Antique Collectors Club 1986
Lady Butler Battle Artist 1846-1933
Paul Usherwood and Jenny Spencer Smith
Sutton publishing LTD 1987
An Autobiography
By Elizabeth Butler
Constable & Co. LTD 1922
Quote

I never painted for the glory of war, but to portray its pathos and heroism.
~ Lady Elizabeth Butler

 
 

Julian Alden Weir Still Life Paintings

Armand Cabrera

By

Armand Cabrera

J. Alden Weir is primarily known for his figure paintings and impressionist landscapes but he also created many fine still life paintings throughout his career. His early academic training under Jean Leon Gerome provided the keen observational skills and drawing facility to create these paintings.
 His color harmonies are exquisite and his use of lost and found edges work perfectly with his subject matter. 

He used the different surface qualities of the chosen objects to great effect heightening the sense of realism and fidelity without  over rendering. The designs are very organic in their flow with nothing    awkward or stiff in the painting of the elements.
It is naturalism, but a naturalism edited with a keen eye and powerful understanding of capturing only the essential qualities to complete the statement with a simplicity of handling.