Henry Percy Gray

Henry Percy Gray - Landscape with Oaks and Stream - 1927 - Watercolor on canvas - Private collection (click photo for larger image)American artist Henry Percy Gray (1869-1952) was born into a San Francisco family with broad literary and artistic tastes. He studied at the San Francisco School of Design. While he had some early Impressionistic tendencies, his basic approach to composition and color was derived from the Barbizon School and Tonalism, which were emphasized at the School of Design. 

In 1895 Gray moved to New York City where he spent 11 years working as head of the art department for the New York Journal.  While in NYC he studied at the Art Students League and with William Merritt Chase.  Gray returned to San Francisco in 1906 and joined the art department of the Examiner where he remained until about 1915.  By that time he had established himself as a professional landscape painter. 

From 1918-23 Gray maintained a studio in San Francisco's old Monkey Block (now the Transamerica Pyramid), which also served as his living quarters. Around 1910, he began signing his paintings in script instead of the block letters he had used since student days. 

In 1923 Gray married and settled in Monterey, where the newlyweds purchased for their home—and had rebuilt on another site—the historic Casa Bonifacio. Working from his studio attached to the house, Gray attained total mastery of his watercolor technique. In 1939 they sold the home, and after two years in San Francisco, settled in San Anselmo in Marin County. 

Gray is primarily known for his romantic and lush depictions of the Northern California landscape.

Albert Marquet: A Style of Impressions

Albert Marquet - View from a Balcony - 1945 - Oil on canvas - 25 5/8 x 19 3/4 in. - Metropolitan Museum of Art - New York, NYFrench painter Albert Marquet (1875-1947) was very involved with Fauvism during the early years of the twentieth century. Fauvism—the first movement of Modern Art—was a wild, vibrant style of expressionistic art that shocked the critics. It has since been recognized as one of the seminal forces that drove Modern Art. It’s practitioners were called the fauves, French for "wild beasts," as a term of derision, referring to their apparent lack of discipline. Once thought of as a minor, short-lived, movement, Fauvism paved the way to other significant developments in modernism in its disregard for natural forms and its love of unbridled color. 

Marquet participated in a group exhibition with Henri Matisse (1869-1954), André Derain (1880-1954) and Maurice de Vlaminck (1876-1958) at the "Salon d'Automne" in 1905. In the following year, Marquet traveled extensively through France and also visited Germany, Holland, North Africa, Russia and Scandinavia. Between 1940 and 1945, Marquet lived in Algiers. He only returned to Paris permanently in 1945, two years before his death. 

Albert Marquet developed his own style, which was influenced by his varied impressions during his travels. He moved from typical Fauvism to a simplified, calmer style more akin to Impressionism He remained faithful to that approach for the rest of his life. In addition to landscapes Marquet also produced some excellent figurative paintings, including several powerful female nudes and numerous portraits. The painting featured here was completed shortly after his final return to Paris.

Winter!

Bruce Crane - Winter Landscape - Watercolor and gouache on blue-gray wove paper - 10 7/8 x 18 11/16 in. (27.6 x 47.5 cm) - Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (click photo for larger image)American artist Bruce Crane (1857-1937) was born in New York City. He was educated in New York's public schools and was exposed to the city's galleries and museums by his father, himself an amateur painter.  By the age of seventeen, Crane had moved to Elizabeth, New Jersey, where he was employed as a draftsman by an architect and builder. 

He soon decided to devote his career to painting. In 1876 or 1877, he sought the guidance of the landscape painter Alexander H. Wyant (1836-1892), with whom he subsequently shared a close, lifelong friendship. Between 1878 and 1882, Crane attended the Art Students League in New York and traveled to Europe for further study.  In the United States during this period, he painted in New Jersey; East Hampton, Long Island; and the Adirondacks.

Sándor Brodszky: Hungarian Painter

Sándor Brodszky - Pond in the Alps - 1853 - Oil on canvas, 105 x 133 cm - Private collection (click photo for larger image)Hungarian Painter Sándor Brodszky (1819-1901) studied medicine in Pest, before moving on in 1841 to the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Vienna, where he studied painting under Josef Mössmer (1780-1845) and Franz Steinfeld (1787-1868). In 1845 he went to Munich, where he spent ten years, during which time he studied at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste under Albert Zimmermann (1808-88) and Friedrich Voltz (1817-86). His ideal landscape painter, however, was Carl Rottmann. As well as many successful exhibitions in Germany, from 1842 he regularly exhibited landscapes and still-lifes in the annual exhibitions of the Artists' Association of Pest (Pesti Muegylet) and he settled in the capital in 1856. After 1870 he was one of the conservative landscape painters in Hungary who preserved the traditions of the artists in Vienna and Munich during the 1840s and 1850s. 

An American Original - Thomas Cole

Thomas Cole - View from Mount Holyoke, Northampton, Massachusetts, after a Thunderstorm—The Oxbow - 1836 - Oil on canvas - 51 1/2 x 76 in. (130.8 x 193 cm) - Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

“Long known as "The Oxbow," this work is a masterpiece of American landscape painting, laden with possible interpretations."

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Thomas Cole (1801-1848) was an American artist and founder of the Hudson River School of painting--considered by many to be the first truly American art movement.