Winslow Homer (1836-1910), Fishing, 1878. Charcoal and watercolor on paper, 8 13/16 x 10 9/16 inches, signed lower right.
Hawthorne Fine Art Celebrates Spring through Participation in the Lyndhurst Flower & Antiques Show & Saleat Tarrytown’s Historic Lyndhurst Mansion with a Preview of the Exhibition, “Blossoms: A Botanical Exploration of Spring in American Art”
February 2019, New York, NY— Everything is coming up roses at Hawthorne Fine Art! In celebration of the warmth and rejuvenation of the spring season, the gallery is pleased to announce an upcoming exhibition of floral and botanical artworks. A special preview of the exhibition will be on display at the upcoming Lyndhurst Flower & Antiques Show & Saleat Lyndhurst, one of America’s finest nineteenth-century gothic revival mansions. On April 6th and 7th, the mansion will be transformed with the color and fragrance of spring as the region’s foremost floral designers create arrangements to harmonize with the sumptuous interior. As part of the antiques show in the adjacent Lyndhurst Carriage House, Hawthorne Fine Art will be showcasing oils, watercolors and pastel artworks that complement the live blooms displayed nearby. Many of the works were painted by historic, academically-trained female artists and represent exciting new acquisitions for Hawthorne Fine Art. An exceptional opportunity to explore the intersections of nature and the art of floral arranging with painting in a stunning historic architectural setting, the Lyndhurst Flower & Antiques Show & Sale is sure to stimulate the senses with the sights and smells of spring.
As a season representing renewal and rebirth, many American artists took inspiration from spring’s botanical splendor and explored the subject through a variety of genres, including still-life, and figural or uninhabited works featuring either cultivated or wild landscapes. Due to the nineteenth century fascination with natural history and the ubiquitous utilization of still-life painting as a component of academic training, this period is filled with magnificent renderings of floral and botanical subjects.
The calculated precision of trompe l’oeil(“fool the eye”) painting, which gained popularity during the Renaissance, remained a popular style for artists in the nineteenth century. In Tabletop Bouquetfrom 1888, Minnie Rankin Wyman (1871-1963) showcases her meticulous technique while capturing the delicacy, yet colorful vitality of the colorful pansies and roses against a black background. Similarly, female painter Claude Raguet Hirst (1855-1942), widely-recognized for her hyper-realistic still lifes at the turn of the twentieth century, makes her array of yellow, white and pink roses dazzle against a dark green mass of leaves and thorns.
While the above works have the casual elegance of freshly-picked flowers strewn upon a table, many artists opted to depict more formal floral arrangements held in vases or similar vessels. Sarah E. Davis (Fl. 1870s) arranges her roses in full-bloom in elegant white porcelain and alabaster vases, expertly rendering the soft petals and layered depth of the flowers. Clara Lotte Von Marcard-Cucuel’s (c. 1915-1955) Magnoliasincludes red tubular flowers, likely standing cypress or trumpet-creepers, arranged in a simple glass vessel. The flowers depicted are all native to the artist’s home in the American South after she emigrated from Germany. Minerva Josephine Chapman (1858-1947) similarly arranges her impressionistic Lilacsin a modest blue jug, giving an air of informality to this otherwise classical academic composition reflective of her training at the Académie Julian in Paris.
In her watercolor of a bowl overflowing with pastel-hued sweetpeas, Emma Collin (Sears) Marsh (1871-1960) takes a similar impressionistic approach yet manages to instill her floral subject with a skilled blend of scientific accuracy and aesthetic beauty. Having an avid academic interest in botany and horticulture, Marsh lectured on wildflowers at local garden clubs and often included botanical information in many of her more than 900 watercolors documenting the flora of New York and Florida. William Trost Richards (1833-1905), who taught at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in the 1850s, also took a studied academic approach to his many botanical drawings executed in watercolor and graphite. He often dated his drawings, such as Blossoming Plant, with unusual precision that reflected the exact date of their creation. His close, meticulous drawings of flora also reflected his literary practice, where the artist would write extensive essays on the glory of nature in a mode reminiscent of the writer Henry David Thoreau.
The cheerful abundance of nature is explored in several artworks in the exhibition, such as the 1904 pastel drawing Orchard in Blossomby Walter Griffin (1876-1937). This ebullient drawing of an orchard, a popular subject in French painting, is also reminiscent of Vincent Van Gogh’s (1853-1890) garden drawings after Jean-Francois Millet (1814-1875). The Cottage Gardenby the Académie Julian trained artist Abbott Fuller Graves (1859-1936) is similarly celebratory in its vibrant hues and impressionistic style. Here, the flowers nearly engulf the small home, while the sweeping, broken Impressionistbrushstrokes dapple the scene and capture the shadows cast by the sun’s bright rays upon the cottage. Clara G. Churchill likewise presents an exuberant scene of a Bermuda lane lined by a row of lush pink oleanders.
Following the inspiration of artists like J.M.W. Turner (1775-1851) and John Constable (1776-1837) earlier in the century, some nineteenth-century artists embedded figures interacting with the natural landscape, which alludes to the period’s growing nostalgia for a simpler rural life in an era of industrialization. In a charcoal drawing by Winslow Homer (1836-1910) of a young boy and girl fishing from 1878, the artist memorializes a formative moment from many American childhoods. In a pair of watercolor drawings by Junius R. Sloan (1827-1900) entitled Afternoon Picnic and Picking Flowers, the artist captures everyday leisure activities for Americans living in the small villages and cities near Chicago. Though Sloan’s family was from New York, the artist traveled to the Midwest to capture the heart of American culture – a symbolic act during the rapid urbanization of the nineteenth century.
“Blossoms: A Botanical Exploration of Spring in American Art” will be previewed in the gallery’s booth at the upcoming Lyndhurst Flower & Antiques Show & Saleat Lyndhurst Mansion on April 6 and 7 from 10 to 5 p.m. Attendees have the opportunity to enjoy a full day of events, including high tea in the charming guest cottage (by reservation), a walking tour of the Antiques Show with Bob Richter, “America’s Vintage Lifestyle Expert,” on Saturday at 12 p.m., followed by a book signing at 1 p.m.
After the Lyndhurst preview, “Blossoms: A Botanical Exploration of Spring in American Art” will then be on display at Hawthorne Fine Art by appointment from April 8 through May 15th, 2019. While a select few paintings are highlighted here, the entirety of Hawthorne Fine Art’s diverse collection is accessible through the Inventory page of the gallery website, HawthorneFineArt.com. For more information or to make an appointment, please contact the gallery at info@hawthornefineart.com, or by phone at 212.731.0550.
About Hawthorne Fine Art: Hawthorne Fine Art LLC is a Manhattan based gallery that specializes in 19th and early 20th century American Art. We select our works for their quality, beauty, and rarity and price them competitively for the market. We curate our paintings with strong academic scholarship and provide all of our clients with insight into the value of the work by elucidating its place within the artist’s larger body of work as well as the artist’s position in the market and more broadly, within the history of American art. We are dedicated to the careful cultivation of both private and institutional collections and we strive to provide all of our clients with beautiful and inspiring pieces. We offer our clients, who may be looking to expand or refine their collections, advisory and appraisal services and we advise on issues regarding provenance, dating, authenticity, and the framing of works. With our strong commitment to research, scholarship, and education we honor the hard work of the artists we represent through the production of museum-quality exhibitions and scholarly catalogues.
Schedule of Events for the Lyndhurst Flower & Antiques Show, April 6-7, 2019
Saturday, April 6
- Flower Show, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
- Antiques Show, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
- High Tea in the Guest Cottage, timed seatings
- Floral Weaving Family Workshop, 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
- Antiques Show Walkthrough with Bob Richter, 12 p.m.
- Book Signing of Vintage Livingby Bob Richter, 1 p.m.
Sunday, April 7
- Flower Show, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
- Antiques Show, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
- High Tea in the Guest Cottage, timed seatings
- Floral Weaving Family Workshop, 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
Minerva Josephine Chapman (1858-1947), Lilacs, oil on canvas, 16 x 12 ½ inches, signed lower right Inscribed “Étude Fleurs.”
Clara G. Churchill, Oleander, Bermuda, watercolor on paper, 10 1/2 x 11 inches, signed and inscribed with title, lower left.
Sarah E. Davis (Fl. 1870’s), Still Life of Roses in an Alabaster Vase, oil on canvas, 10 x 8 inches each, each signed and dated 1865, lower left.
Sarah E. Davis (Fl. 1870’s), Still-life of Roses in a Porcelain Vase, oil on canvas, 10 x 8 inches each, each signed and dated 1865, lower left.
Abbott Fuller Graves (1859-1936), The Cottage Garden, oil on canvas, 25 1/4 x 30 1/8 inches, signed lower right.
Walter Griffin (1876-1937), Orchard in Blossom, 1904, pastel on paper, 11 x 14 inches, signed lower left.
Claude Raguet Hirst (1855-1942), Roses, 1881, oil on canvas, 8 ½ x 10 ½ inches, signed and dated 1881.
Clara Lotte Von Marcard-Cucuel (c. 1915-1955), Magnolias, oil on canvas, 25 x 30 inches, signed lower right.
Emma Collin (Sears) Marsh (1871-1960), Sweetpeas, watercolor on paper, 16 ½ x 22 ½ inches, signed lower left.
William Trost Richards (1833-1905), Blossoming Plant, Oct. 2 1861, graphite on paper, 8 13/16 x 5 15/16, dated lower left.
Junius Sloan (1827-1900), Afternoon Picnic, watercolor on paper, 16 x 11 1/2 inches, signed lower left.
Junius Sloan (1827-1900), Picking Flowers, watercolor on paper, 11 7/8 x 7 3/4 inches, signed lower left.
Minnie Rankin Wyman (1871-1963), Tabletop Bouquet, 1888, oil on canvas, 15 1/2 x 23 1/4 inches, signed and dated 1888, lower left.
American School (19th century), Chrysanthemums, oil on porcelain, 23 x 12 inches.
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