Red Roofs in Art Essay

 Red Roofs in Art

Plus, in all eight of these landscape paintings
a figure appears in only one. Which painting?
Go figure.

1
Udsigt over tage mod Thisted kirke /
View over Rooftops towards Thisted Church
Richard Mortensen (1910-1993), Danish
Oil on canvas, 34" x 26" (w x h), 1941

Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen, Denmark

Richard Strange Mortensen was born in Copenhagen, Denmark. He studied between 1931 and 1932 at the Royal Danish Academy of Art in Copenhagen. In Copenhagen, Mortensen was joint founder of the "Linien" school of abstract painters. In 1945, he married author and poet Sonja Hauberg (1918-1947). In 1947 after his wife's death he moved to Paris. In 1964 he returned to Denmark where he received a professorship at the Royal Danish Academy of Art in Copenhagen, which he held until 1980. Mortensen was awarded the Edvard Munch Prize (1946), the Kandinsky prize (1950), the Prince Eugen Medal (1967) and the Thorvaldsen Medal (1968). Richard and Sonja were the parents of literary researcher and professor Finn Hauberg Mortensen (1946-2013).

2
Red Roofs
Joseph Rodefer Decamp (1858-1923), American
Oil on canvas, 28" x 22" (w x h), 1914
Christie's 2024 auction sold, $27,720 USD

From 1903 until his death in 1923, he was a faculty member at Massachusetts Normal Art School, now Massachusetts College of Art and Design teaching painting from the living model and portraiture. He also taught painting classes at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. A 1904 fire in his Boston studio destroyed several hundred of his early paintings, including nearly all of his landscapes. He was awarded the 1899 Temple Gold Medal (for Woman Drying Her Hair), the 1912 Beck Gold Medal (for Portrait of Francis I. Amory), and the 1920 Lippincott Prize (for The Red Kimono) by the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. He received an honorable mention at the 1900 Exposition Universelle in Paris (for Woman Drying Her Hair). His exhibit at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair - Reading - The Sea Wall - Portrait of Arthur P. DeCamp - was awarded a gold medal. He was awarded the 1909 Clarke Silver Medal by the Corcoran Gallery of Art (for The Guitar Player). He was awarded the 1915 gold medal by the Philadelphia Art Club (for The Silver Waist).

3
Red-Roofed Houses
Charles Demuth (1883-1935), American
Watercolor and graphite on wove paper, 16" x 14" (w x h), 1917
The Samuel S. White 3rd and Vera White Collection
The Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA

"Search the history of American art," wrote Ken Johnson in The New York Times, "and you will discover few watercolors more beautiful than those of Charles Demuth. Combining exacting botanical observation and loosely Cubist abstraction, his watercolors of flowers, fruit and vegetables have a magical liveliness..." Demuth was a lifelong resident of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, though widely traveled, finding more acceptance of his homosexuality in Paris. The home he shared with his mother is now the Demuth Museum.

4

St. Tropez
John MacLauchlan Milne, RSA (1886-1957), Scottish
Oil on canvas board, 23" x 19", 1924
Exhibited in London, Portland Gallery,
John MacLauchlan Milne: Life and Works, 2010

Bonham's London 2012 auction
sold $81,700 USD / 61,250 GBP

John MacLauchlan Milne RSA (1885-1957) was a Scottish painter associated with Dundee, Scotland's artistic community in the early 20th Century, but who also spent much time abroad, usually in the South of France. He was a landscape painter with works found in many public art galleries, especially in Scotland. Professionally, he was recognized by being elected an Associate of the RSA in 1934, The Royal Scottish Academy, Scotland's national academy of art, and a full RSA in 1938.

5
House with Red Roof
Paul Cezanne (1839-1906), French
Oil on canvas, 36" x 29" (w x h), 1890 in Provence
Private Collection

Paul Cezanne (1839-1906) painted this in 1890, a difficult time for him. Before 1890 Cezanne had struggled financially. Plus, his marriage to Hortense, a relationship that had broken down, was intended to secure the rights of their now fourteen-year-old son Paul, whom Cezanne loved very much, as a legitimate son. With an inheritance from his father in 1888 life was financially easier. But in 1890, he developed diabetes. The illness made it even more difficult for him to deal with others. Cezanne spent a few months in Switzerland with Hortense and son Paul in the hope that the troubled relationship with Hortense could be stabilized. The attempt failed, so he returned to Provence, while Hortense and Paul went to Paris. Financial need prompted Hortense's return to Provence but in separate living quarters. Cezanne moved in with his mother and sister.

6
The Red Roof
Arthur Segal (1875-1944), Romanian
Oil on board, 12" x 14" (w x h), 1910
Christie's London auction 2009
sold $15,000 USD / GBP 11,250

Arthur Segal (1875-1944) was a Romanian artist and author. He was born to Jewish parents in Romania, and studied at the Berlin Academy from 1892. He studied in Munich in 1896, and later studied in Paris and Italy in the early 1900s. On the outbreak of war in 1914 he moved to Switzerland with his family. In 1920, he returned to Berlin, where he founded his own art school in 1923. He was offered a teaching job at the Bauhaus in Dessau, but he declined. Because of his Jewish background he was prevented from exhibiting his work in Germany, so in 1933 he moved to Palma, Majorca and then London, where he set up another painting school with his daughter Marianne. He died in London.

7
Landscape with Red Roofs
Vladimir Davidovich Baranov-Rossine (1888-1944), Russian (Ukraine)
Oil on canvas, 17" x 14" (w x h), circa 1909-1910
Exhibited: Moscow, The State Tretyakov Gallery,
St. Petersburg, The State Russian Museum, 2002
Sotheby's London auction 2012
sold $129,500 USD / 97,250 GBP

Vladimir Davidovich Baranov-Rossine (1888-1944) was a painter and sculptor active in Russia and France. His work belonged to the avant-garde movement of Cubo-Futurism. In 1918, he had exhibits with the union of artists (World of Art) in St. Petersburg as well as an exhibition with the Jewish Society for the Furthering of the Arts in Moscow. He participated at the First State Free Art Exhibition in St. Petersburg in 1919. Also that year he married Yudin Raisa. In March 1920, they had a son named Evgeny, but Raisa died from complications after child birth. He was also an inventor, author of several patents. In 1924, he had the first presentation of his optophonic piano during a performance at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow - it was capable of creating sounds and colored lights, patterns and textures simultaneously. In 1925, he emigrated to France and stayed. But in 1943, during the German occupation of France, as a Jew he was arrested and deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp where he was murdered in January 1944.

8
Landscape with Red Roofs
Pyotr Alexandrovich Nilus (1869-1943) Russian
Oil on canvas, 26" x 22" (w x h), Paris, 1943
Listed at Sotheby's London,
auction estimate $13,000 - $16,500 USD /
10,000 - 15,000 GBP

Pyotr Alexandrovich Nilus (1869-1943) was a Russian and Ukrainian impressionist painter and writer. At seven-years-old Pyotr moved to Odessa, Ukraine where he studied at the local Peter and Paul real school and attended art classes with a painter outside of school. He attended the Imperial Academy of Arts in Saint Petersburg and participated in exhibitions. Pyotr Nilus married Jewish Berta Solomonovna. In 1906 with Korney Chukovsky he participated in a literary and artistic collection for the benefit of "Jewish children who were orphaned during the October pogrom in Odessa". During the Russian Civil War, in 1920, he emigrated to Paris where he worked until his death in 1943.