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Louis Ritman(1889-1963)Winding Stairs
US$4,000 - US$6,000
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Jelena James
Senior Specialist, Head of Sale

Claire Dettelbach
Cataloguer

Jewel Bernier
Cataloguer
Louis Ritman (1889-1963)
signed 'L. RITMAN' (lower left); with the artist's estate stamp (on the reverse); identified on a label from R.H. Love Galleries (affixed to the backing board)
oil on canvas
23 3/4 x 28 7/8 in. (60.3 x 73.3 cm)
Footnotes
Provenance
R.H. Love Galleries, Chicago.
The present private collection (acquired from the previous, 2005).
N.B.
Born in Russia, Louis Ritman moved to Chicago as a child, where he began his art studies before heading to Paris in 1909 to study at the École des Beaux-Arts. He worked for a time in Giverny, painting vibrant and animated light-filled landscapes and female nudes, before returning to the U.S. in 1929 to teach at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He regularly returned to France to paint throughout his life.
Ritman was one of the leading American Impressionists of the time, and his works display a keen sense of both compositional and tonal harmony, employing broad, loose strokes in subtle patterns to create sensitive, atmospheric scenes. The present work departs from his depictions of sunny gardens or sun-dappled interiors and nudes, showing a row of gray-stone houses under a slate sky. Ritman here uses color and contrast sparingly and effectively to create a wonderful study in textures and light, from the glinting sun on the roof to the warm light on the path. There is a rhythmic poeticism in the composition, with the winding stairs leading away from us and the gently undulating dirt path.
























