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The Art of Woods with Snow
The Trunks Are Packed
with art by:
Rockwell Kent, American
Koloman Moser, Austrian
David Grossman, American
Chu Teh-Chun, Chinese-American
Edvard Munch, Norwegian
Georgia O'Keeffe, American
William Thon, American
Mark Edwards, Scottish
Au Sable River, Winter: Adirondacks
Rockwell Kent (1882-1971), American
Oil on canvas, 39" x 28" (w x h), 1960
Gift from the artist in 1964 to:
Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia
Source WiKi edited:
Rockwell Kent was an American painter, printmaker, illustrator, writer, sailor, adventurer and voyager. Kent was not a Communist and considered his political views to be in the best traditions of American democracy. From 1957 to 1971, Kent was president of the National Council of American-Soviet Friendship. After a well-received exhibition of his work in Moscow at the Pushkin Museum in 1957-58, he donated several hundred of his paintings and drawings to the Soviet peoples in 1960.
Pine Forest in Winter /
Föhrenwald im Winter
Koloman Moser (1868-1918), Austrian
Oil on canvas, 18" x 21" (w x h), circa 1907
Source WiKi edited:
Koloman Moser was an Austrian artist who exerted considerable influence on twentieth-century graphic art. He was one of the foremost artists of the Vienna Secession movement and a co-founder of Wiener Werkstätte.
He designed a wide array of art works, including books and graphic works from postage stamps to magazine vignettes; fashion; stained glass windows, porcelains and ceramics, blown glass, tableware, silver, jewelry, and furniture.
Stained Glass Sky
David Grossman (1984- ), American
Oil on linen panel, 40" x 60" (w x h)
Private Collection
David Grossman:
"The fragmented colors of dusk filtering through branches and the hush of being inside of a winter forest made me think of a cathedral, quiet and illuminated as light pours through the patterns of stained glass."
Grossmann and his wife, Kristy, live in western Colorado. His paintings have been featured in Artists and Illustrators, American Art Collector, Plein Air Magazine, and the Royal Academy Magazine. In 2021, Southwest Art Magazine named him as one of the "10 top artists who will help define the future of western art."
Printemps Hivernal
Chu Teh-Chun (1920-2014), Chinese-French
Oil on canvas,
1986-1987
Sotheby's 2014 New York auction Sold $4,421,000 USD
Source WiKi edited:
Chu Teh-Chun (or Zhu Dequn) was a Chinese-French abstract painter acclaimed for his pioneering style integrating traditional Chinese painting techniques with Western abstract art. He enrolled in the National School of Fine Arts, now the China Academy of Art. He was the first ethnic Chinese member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts of France, and together with Wu Guanzhong and Zao Wou-Ki were dubbed the "Three Musketeers" of modernist Chinese artists trained in China and France.
According to the Hurun Art List, the total value of Chu's artworks sold in 2013 at public auction was $65 million USD, ranking third among all living Chinese artists.
Winter
Edvard Munch (1863-1944), Norwegian
Oil and tempera on canvas, 31" x 26" (w x h), 1899-1900
Private collection
Source Wiki edited:
In 1899, Munch began an intimate relationship with Tulla Larsen, a "liberated" upper-class woman. They traveled to Italy together and upon returning, Munch began another fertile period in his art, which included landscapes, including Winter above, and his final painting in "The Frieze of Life" series, The Dance of Life (1899). Larsen was eager for marriage and Munch begged off. His drinking and poor health reinforced his fears, as he wrote in the third person:
"Ever since he was a child he had hated marriage. His sick and nervous home had given him the feeling that he had no right to get married."
Munch almost gave in to Tulla, but fled from her in 1900, also turning away from her considerable fortune, and moved to Berlin.
Bare Tree Trunks with Snow
Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986), American
Oil on Canvas, 40" x 30" (w x h), 1946
Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, Texas
Source Museum notes:
Taking winter-stripped trees in upstate New York as her subject, Georgia O'Keeffe simplified what she saw until what is left in this painting is an exploration of shape and color. O'Keeffe abstracted the essence of these forms by pulling in close to the trees without focusing on details; the forms are smooth, the bark dissolving into areas of soft grays and warm beige. The shallow space and cropped trees lend an ambiguity to the subject resolved only by the descriptive title. Throughout her career, O'Keeffe united abstraction with an abiding interest in nature, creating signature, close-up images of natural forms.
Deep Winter
William Thon (1906-2000), American
Oil on Masonite, 36" x 22" (w x h), 1975
1976 Audubon Artist's Prize, New York City
Caldbeck Gallery, Rockland, Maine, Sold $12,000.
Source ArtNet, Caldbeck Gallery and WiKi edited:
Born in Manhattan, William Thon made his home in Port Clyde, Maine for over 50 years. He enjoyed early professional success in New York at the 1939 Corcoran Biennial Exhibition and the 1942 Artists for Victory Show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. This "Victory" show brought him to the attention of Alan Gruskin whose Midtown Galleries held Thon's first one man show in 1944. William Thon, The Artist and His Work was published in 1964 by Viking Press.
William Thon had no formal art training apart from 30 days at the Art Students League. He discovered his individual style through trial and error. He began painting in oil in a fairly realistic mode, but during his stay at the American Academy in Rome he discovered watercolor as a serious medium and loosened his style some. His work became more abstract, although the sources were still recognizable. Perhaps the major breakthrough for his painting came with the discovery of an abandoned quarry near his home in Maine. Here he painted spidery trees with rectilinear slabs of granite interspersed. While still based in nature, these were by far the most abstract of his paintings.
William Thon held an honorary Doctor of Arts from Bates College in Lewiston Maine, and was a member of The American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, as well as the National Academy of Design. His works are in over 60 museums nationwide including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Farnsworth Art Museum and the Portland Museum of Art. The Portland Museum of Art's Biennial exhibition is supported by a multi-million-dollar contribution from Thon's estate.
Beside the Path
Mark Edwards (1951- ), Scottish
Acrylic on canvas, 29" x 21" (w x h), 2010
Source artist's web site, edited:
Mark Edwards, born in 1951, went to study at Medway College of Art in 1967. He continued his studies at Walthamstow College of Art in London. Impatient to start his art career, he didn't complete his degree. He lives in the north of Scotland.
He's painted his Winter Wood studies of a snow-covered wood for more than ten years. One might expect to see deer standing knee-deep in the freshly fallen snow, but he paints a subtly amusing series of men, wearing black overcoats and Homburg hats. Creative and technical experimentation during the artist's time as an illustrator, coupled with his desire to avoid a preconceived narrative have led to this highly original body of work. Its bold compositions and isolated characters are enigmatic, ambiguous and even darkly comic.
The artist's website is HERE.
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