Art of Mountain Ash Art Essay

Art of Mountain Ash / Rowan Tree
A collection of eight paintings
by four female and three male artists
from Britain, Canada, Finland, Russia
and the United States.

Sorbus americana is commonly known as the American mountain-ash. It is a deciduous perennial tree, native to eastern North America. The American mountain-ash and related species, often the European mountain-ash (Sorbus aucuparia), are also referred to as rowan trees.

1
Western Mountain Ash (Sorbus sambucifolia)
Mary Vaux Walcott (1860-1940) American
Watercolor on paper, 7" x 10" (w x h), 1918
Smithsonian American Art Museum

2
Rowan Tree
Pekka Halonen (1865-1933) Finnish
Oil on canvas, 25" x 34" (w x h), 1908
Finnish National Gallery

Pekka Halonen (1865-1933) is one of Finland's major painters. He studied in Helsinki at the Art Society's Drawing School for four years and graduated with good grades winning a scholarship to study abroad. In 1890 he went to Paris, where he first studied at the Academy Julian and later under Paul Gauguin.

3
Rowanberries or Mountain Ash
J.E.H. MacDonald, (1873–1932) English-Canadian
Oil on canvas, 1922
The Thomson Collection at the Art Gallery of Ontario

James Edward Hervey MacDonald RCA (1873–1932) was an English-Canadian artist and one of the Group of Seven who initiated the first major Canadian national art movement.

4
Still Life with Rowan
Elena Aleksandrovna Rukavishnikova (1929-2015) Russian
Oil on canvas, 1975
Private collection

Elena Aleksandrovna Rukavishnikova graduated from the Leningrad Art School in 1953. In 1959, thirty-years-old, she graduated from the painting faculty of the Leningrad Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. Among her collected works are: Still Life with Bread (1981, State Museum of Fine Arts Rostov Kremlin) and Sunflowers (1973, YAHM) and in many Russian and foreign private collections. She was a member of the Union of Artists of Russia (1967). See more of her art HERE.

5
Rowan / Pihlaja
Pekka Halonen (1865-1933) Finnish
Oil on canvas, 1894
Private collection

In 1895 Pekka Halonen married a young music student, Maija Mäkinen and they had eight children. In the beginning of their marriage, the couple lived in several places before settling down in a house with a studio on Lake Tuusula in 1895. Here the Halonen family lived in an imposing pinewood villa, Halosenniemi. It was designed by Pekka Halonen himself and his brother and was completed in 1902. It was an artist's community including composer Jean Sibelius, writer Juhani Aho, poet J. H. Erkko and painters Eero Järnefelt and Venny Soldan-Brofeldt. Today Halosenniemi is a museum and features his art.

6
Under the Rowan Tree
Janis Rozentals (1866-1916) Latvian
Oil, 22" x 31" (w x h), 1905
Latvian National Museum of Art

7
Rowan Tree
Joan Kathleen Harding Eardley (1921-1963), British
Oil on canvas, 7" x 14" (w x h),
H 36 x W 16.8 cm
Gracefield Arts Centre, Dumfries, Scotland

Joan Eardley was noted for her portraiture of street children in Glasgow and for her landscapes of the fishing village of Catterline and surroundings on the North-East coast of Scotland. She's one of Scotland's most enduringly popular artists.

8
Mountain Ash
Valerie Aponik (1953- ) American
Oil on board, 16" x 12" (w x h), 2019
Available Blue Hill Bay Gallery $700
The artist's website is HERE.

Valerie Aponik lives on Great Wass Island, Beals, Maine (summers) and Phillips, Maine (winters).