Sources Consulted: Archives of askART, including information courtesy of Brian Roughton Galleries.
]]>Sources Consulted: Archives of askART, including information courtesy of Brian Roughton Galleries.
Completed in 1848 as part of the Croton Aqueduct System, this structure originally spanned the Harlem River using 16 stone arches (later replaced by steel). At the time of Jacoby's painting, some 24 million gallons of water were passing over it every day.
We haven’t located much reliable information about this artist. His work was exhibited at the Municipal Art Committee (1937). Judging from the locations of his paintings Jacoby seems to have lived in or near New York City. 8 more images at FAP.
A portrait of a woman looks off, away from a light source igniting the glaze on the canvas, casting a white glow across the surface: below her sits a still life layout of like-colored objects. In the shadow rests a cut-open orange sitting on the stem of a tulip of a similar hue. Beside it is an off-white bowl, holding unidentifiable fruits.
The Old North Church towers over a dismal, darkened street. A break of sunlight gradually illuminates the peaks of the buildings, sidewalk near the church, and the almost nonvisible side of the church’s steeple. There is a hazy quality to the painting; it blurs the figures moving down the road, who appear to be shadowy splotches blending in with the sidewalks and cold, bland buildings. Each structure is simple; the only discernible details are the spires, lantern, and belfry of the steeple.
About the Artist: Born in Staatsburg-on-Hudson, NY, Cole was named after two renowned painters of the Hudson River School: Thomas Cole (1801-1848) and John William Casilear (1811-1893). He attended school at the Riverview Military Academy in Poughkeepsie, NY (1900-04) and Harvard University (1905) before turning his attention to painting studied at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (1905-11) and Académie Julian, Paris (1912). In 1909, he published a history in New England Magazine on Old St. Mary’s Church at Newton’s Lower Falls, illustrated by his own paintings. Cole served in the US Navy between 1917 and 1919, and beginning in May 1918 worked under William Andrew Mackay in a special unit for the camouflage of ships and submarines at the Bureau of Construction and Repair. During the final eight months of World War I, more than 1,200 US ships were painted with so-called “disruptive coloration”. After the war, he showed his talents at a Knoedler Gallery exhibition of Allied Commander portraits, Cole’s praised as “having a personality all their own with the dark rich coloring in the figures and the well-modeled faces contrasted against the dark background” (Brooklyn Daily Eagle 19 Oct. 1919: 77). He went on to exhibit his work widely, including the National Academy of Design, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and the Art Institute of Chicago. A reviewer of his 1927 exhibition of 33 portraits at Ainslee Gallery wrote: “In all cases the portraits are distinguished by a sincerity and a happy achievement of the most difficult of all painters’ problems, that of satisfying both sitter and himself (Brooklyn Daily Eagle 13 Feb. 1927: 59). Cole became so well-known for his portraits that he was often commissioned to paint public and historical figures like President James K. Polk. 13 more images at FAP. His papers are at the Archives of American Art.
This painting depicts blooming Japanese flora in what appears to be a body of water; however, most of the canvas is negative space, a technique that allows for a higher contrast in colors of Ward’s vegetation. It also is perhaps intended to allow viewers to contemplate life and its meaning, for the flowers and waterlilies surrounding the base of the vegetation—their branches and petals—are flourishing.
About the Artist: Ward was born, in Paris, to a family of artists. His father Edgar Melville was a noted genre painter who directed the National Academy of Design for twenty years; his uncle John Quincy Adams Ward was even more famous for his public sculptures. The younger painter studied with Edward William Carlson, Francis Coates Jones, and—perhaps most influential—the muralist George W. Maynard. He lived much of his life in Ulster County. As of the mid-1930s Ward, in addition to painting, was a designer and a muralist in his own right (Kingston Daily Freeman 30 July 1936: 7). His “Under Sea Life” was at the Jones Beach Pavillion, and he created several for Wells College, Aurora NY.