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PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE COLLECTION, ARIZONA
Lot 40
Julian Alden Weir(1852-1919)Connecticut Landscape 24 x 33 1/2in
19 November 2018, 16:00 EST
New YorkSold for US$11,250 inc. premium
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Julian Alden Weir (1852-1919)
Connecticut Landscape
oil on canvas
24 x 33 1/2in
Painted circa 1895.
oil on canvas
24 x 33 1/2in
Painted circa 1895.
Footnotes
Provenance
The artist.
Cora Weir Burlingham, Branchville, Connecticut, daughter of the above, by descent.
Sewell C. Biggs, Delaware.
Spanierman Gallery, New York, 1997.
Goldfield Galleries, Los Angeles, California, by 2000.
Exhibited:
Wilmington, Delaware, Delaware Art Museum, Sewell C. Biggs Collection, February–April 1983.
Southampton, New York, The Parrish Art Museum, and elsewhere, A Connecticut Place: Weir Farm, An American Painter's Rural Retreat, April 15–September 17, 2000, p. 64, fig. 53, illustrated.
Connecticut Landscape marks an important turning point in the stylistic shift and approach to subject matter that evolved for Julian Alden Weir during the 1890s. Weir was among the group of artists who called themselves the Ten American Painters and held an important and influential role in the New York art scene during his lifetime. His large body of work included all mediums and a breadth of subject matter from genre scenes to figures and still life. It was only in late 1880s that Weir began to focus more in-depth on landscape painting and elements of abstraction. This followed after his move to the country in the summer of 1882, when he established a residency in Branchville, Connecticut, where he procured a farm property in exchange for a painting. Branchville offered the artist refuge from metropolitan life, while maintaining an easy commute to and from the city where professional interests kept him, and provided an environment more suitable to his aesthetic interests.
In the bright, sunlit landscape works from this period, including Connecticut Landscape, the artist illustrated elements of nature by utilizing abstracted shapes and patterned brushstrokes, an aesthetic partially inspired by his exploration of Japanese prints. The present work pictures a steep hillside, with exposed rock formations undulating from green grass. Trees, grass and rock are constructed of flecks of pigment in earthy colored hues as broken brushstrokes establish each form. The peak of the hill is dappled in sunlight and the foreground is dark in tones to illustrate the shadow of trees. It is likely the present work illustrates a location on the artist's own 155 acres of land in Branchville.