"Sunday Afternoon in the Country," Florine Stettheimer, 1917.

Stettheimer (1871-1944) was a Modernist painter and theatrical designer, as well as a pioneering feminist, poet, and salonniere.

While at first glance this seems rather mundane, the colors are strange; check out the red tree. Some of the characters seem to be doing bizarre, random things, and some appear to be sitting in upholstered armchairs.

In reality, this is her memory of a picnic she held; in the upper right, hardly visible, she paints herself working at her easel. In the lower left, photographer Edward Steichen points his camera at Dada founder Marcel Duchamp. leaning on a table, while Ettie Stettheimer (the artist's sister) stands behind him in the red coat. Other real-life people are depicted, but in a strange style reminiscent of Chagall.

Stettheimer refused to identify with any group or school; her work is Modernist by default for the time she worked in and her style. Not taken seriously in her liftetime, her work was donated to museums and rediscovered in the 1990s, and now she is hailed as a great American artist.

From the Cleveland Museum of Art.

"Rum Row," Frederick Judd Waugh, 1922.

This is a fairly off-the-beaten-track painting for Waugh (1861-1940), who was known mostly as a marine painter. His seascapes are still admired today.

The son of portraitist Samuel Waugh, he had the best education and lives mostly abroad, painting seascapes. He returned to the US in 1908 where he went from New Jersey to Maine to Provincetown, MA. He also did illustration work for periodicals, and was hired by the Navy to design camouflage for ships.

Most interestingly, he published a number of fairy tales with American settings. He was deeply interested in folklore and the supernatural, and sought to create a New World fairy tradition for young readers.

But today we have some lovely irises in empty old rum bottles. These probably were considered trash in his day....now they're valued collectibles!

Happy Flower Friday!

"Portrait of Dora Wheeler," William Merritt Chase, 1882-3.

Chase (1849-1916) was one of the most notable American Impressionists. A renowned portraitist, he was also a versatile artist working in many media, including watercolor & engraving, & was also a prominent teacher. He was willing to accept female students at a time when that was unheard of, & Wheeler was one of his first.

Wheeler (1856-1940) was the daughter of Candace Wheeler (1827-1923) who is regarded as the mother of interior design, & one of America's first women designer of interiors & textiles, & a supporter of craftswomen & design reform. Dora studied art under Chase & then joined her mother's design firm. (Her father was a businessman who was very progressive & encouraged his wife & daughter in their careers.) Dora became known as a portraitist, muralist, textile designer & illustrator, although sadly her most prominent mural was destroyed in a fire & little of her textile work has survived. Still, he was a prominent women of the arts, & both she & her mother were respected designers and entrepeneurs.

From the Cleveland Museum of Art.

"Untitled (Moon Over a Harbor)," Edward Mitchell Bannister, c. 1868.

Bannister (1828-1901) was a Canadian-born Black artist who painted mostly in what is known as the American Barbizon school, an offshoot of the French Barbizon school of art, which specialized in simple scenes painted directly from nature. While American Barbizon artists usually focused on rural and farm scenes, but other settings, like this harbor, were used as well.

Bannister received national attention when he won first place in painting at the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition. He was also an activist, a vocal abolitionist and social justice crusader. He was a prominent figure in Boston's Black artistic community.

Sadly, during his life his artistic style fell from favor, and after his death he was largely forgotten until the late 1960s, when his work was rediscovered by researchers of Black American history. Now he's regarded as a great Canadian-American original.

From the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

"Zebra Family," Morris Hirshfield, 1942.

Born in Poland, Hirshfield (1872-1946) emigrated to the U.S. in 1890 and from then until his 60s he worked in the garment industry, including owning businesses that made women's coats and slippers. After his retirement in 1935, he took up painting.

Completely self-taught, his paintings (primarily of animals and women) were rich with pattern, perhaps a holdover from his work in the garment industry. These zebras, for instance, could almost be crewel embroidery, especially the trees in the background.

He had some fame in his lifetime, including a show at the Museum of Modern Art...but it got bad press and the MoMA's director was demoted as a result. Still, now he's regarded as one of the great American outsider artists.

From a private collection.

The first photo is James Van Der Zee, an American photographer of the Harlem Renaissance.

In my eyes, he documented Black Excellence, and portrayed his community in their best moments, in their best light, and revealed not only the truth of their strength and beauty, but also shined light on their talents and aspirations.

"Irises," Sophia Crownfield, early 20th century.

Not much info is available about Crownfield, but I want to know more. She was born here in Baltimore in 1862 and seems to have received some artistic education here. In the 1880s she moved to New York where she became a highly successful designer of patterns for silk and wallpaper.

She wasn't just a dilettante, she supported herself and her sister with her design work, some of which would be in some of the best silk dresses of the period. She died in her New York home in 1929, at the age of 67.

Design needs to be appreciated more! Design is art!

"Capri," Joseph Stella, c. 1926-29.

Most famous for his views of the Brooklyn Bridge, Stella (1877-1946) also did a number of nature paintings, but always with a strong Modernist bent.

The tree at center is very angular and reminds me somewhat of a menorah. Note how, on the left, the branches match up almost perfectly with the edge of the mountain in the background. The two bushes flanking it are impossibly perfectly conical. The background, with the mountains and boats, is the only part that's halfway naturalistic.

It's an interesting image, a mixture of nature and Modernism that doesn't thrill me but I acknowledge its quality. Ain't my thing, but maybe it's yours.

From a private collection.

"Earth Warming," Marsden Hartley, 1932.

Hartley (1877-1943) was America's preeminent Modernist painter in the first part of the 20th century. His technique borrowed from Cubism but he was generally very representational in his work, even if sometimes it seemed abstract.

Here we have the rugged landscape in Mexico, where Hartley went to work and study for a year after receiving a Guggenheim fellowship in 1931.

From the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, Montgomery, AL

"Brooklyn Bridge," Joseph Stella, 1919-20.

Stella (1877-1946) was born in Italy but came to the US in 1869 to study medicine, but soon abandoned that and embraced art. He began as a figural, realist painter, doing a lot of illustration work, but later, while traveling in Europe, embraced Modernism and Futurism.

Returning to the US in 1911, he plunged into the avant-garde modern art world, and became quite the mover and shaker. This canvas here is the first of a number of paintings he did of the Brooklyn Bridge, which he used as a symbol of progress. In the 30s he progressed with his style, going from Futurism to Precisionism to Abstract to Surrealist to the point that he belonged to no school in particular. In the late 30s and 40s, sadly, his career declined and he got little notice. But his earlier work still is praised as trailblazing classics.

From the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT.

"Votes for Women," Bertha Margaret Boyé, 1911.

There's not much information about Boyé (1883-1930) except that she was a California native who entered this as part of a competition to design a poster to help for the campaign for women's suffrage in California. The Art Nouveau/Arts and Crafts style is lovely, and that's the Golden Gate behind her, so it makes it a uniquely Californian image. And California gave women the vote in 1911, so the poster was successful.

This appears to be her only notable work; she died at the age of 47 in Europe, having gone there to continue her studies.

From the Arthur & Elizabeth Schlesinger Library, Cambridge, MA.

"A Gorge in the Mountains (Kauterskill Clove)," Sanford Robinson Gifford, 1862.

Gifford (1823-1880) was a leader of the second generation of the Hudson River School, and also a leading practitioner of the Luminism style, which focused on soft light effects.

Although he traveled extensively to find great landscapes to paint, his most effective work was often done close to his New York home, such as this picture of a real gorge in the Catskills (although it's really called Kaaterskill Clove...). In later years he considered this one of his "chief pictures."

Kaaterskill Clove was, and is, popular with hikers and artists, and even in the 19th century it was quite a tourist spot, with the town of Palenville trying to pass itself off as the home of Rip van Winkle!

From the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

"Stone City, Iowa," Grant Wood, 1930.

Wood (1891-1942) was THE great American Regionalist painter. He's best known for "American Gothic" but so much else he did is worth looking at.

This painting of an idyllic village is actually a depiction of a town in transition. Stone City had been founded as a company town for a limestone quarry, but the limestone business declined with the rise of Portland cement, so the town shrank and shifted into agriculture. This is a fairly idealized scene showing the town now in harmony with its environment, and a place where Wood established an art colony for a couple of years.

Looks like the perfect landscape for an autumn drive...

From the Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, NE.

"Untitled (Man and Woman)," Bill Traylor, 1939-42.

Traylor (c.1853 - 1949) is one of America's great outsider artists. A poor black sharecropper, he didn't begin making art until he was 85 years old and living on the streets of Montgomery, AL. A young white artist noted the drawings he made and supplied him with paint and other materials. He had one exhibition, in 1940, but nothing sold, but at least it brought enough notice for him to be taken off the streets and living with family.

Now he is seen as a major self-taught artist, with some critics claiming they see all sorts of anti-Jim Crow symbolism in his works.

From the High Museum of Art, Atlanta.

(1/2) John Vanderlyn - Panoramic View of the Palace and Gardens of Versailles (1819). At the Metropolitan Museum of Art on a rainy Sunday and not one of the ones you'd be able to get on a postcard ;)

First batch with the new X-T5. How I've missed shooting through a viewfinder.

"A Gray Day," Richard E. Miller, 1910-11

Miller (1875-1943) was that rare creature, a male American Impressionist. Learning to paint in America, he moved to France in 1898 and joined the Giverny art colony, perfecting his Impressionist technique and hobnobbing with other, more famous Impressionists. He fled Europe at the start of WWI and moved first to Pasadena, then to Provincetown, MA, where he spent the rest of his life.

Although not a famous Impressionist, he was known for his paintings of women in languid poses, most of whom were modeled by his wife. His use of color is also noted and praised, even today.

And it's been a gray day here, so this is fitting.

From the National Academy of Design, New York.

"Ground Swell," Edward Hopper, 1939.

We all know Hopper. Although we know him as a painter of urban scenes, Hopper was a sailing enthusiast.

This is another great summertime painting, but it has undercurrents of menace and isolation. While we have a group of young folks on the boat, nobody is looking at or interacting with each other. The buoy indicates some sort of danger that they need to be aware of. And it looks like storm clouds are lurking on the horizon.

Although there are many interpretations of this painting, it must be noted that Hopper finished it just as WWII was breaking out in Europe...so there's no doubt in my mind as to what the buoy is warning of, or what those clouds in the distance represent.

From the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.

"Summertime," Edward Hopper, 1943.

Edward Hopper (1882-1967) was THE great American Realist, and his depictions of the isolated individuals of modern urban life are iconic and familiar.

Here we have a woman stepping out into the street on a bright summer day. Her neutral expression gives a sense of waiting...but I noticed, looking close, her dress is quite sheer and doesn't leave a lot to the imagination. Is Hopper hinting at something here? Could she, despite a seeming propriety, be a prostitute?

Hopper left many unanswered questions in his canvases, and this is no exception.

From the Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington. (I plan to go there soon!)

"Harmonizing," Horace Pippin, 1944.

Pippin (1888-1946) was a self-taught artist. He took up painting in 1920, partly to help his arm recover from a serious wound suffered in WWI. He painted scenes of everyday Black American life, as well as scenes illustrating slavery, black history, and some allegorical paintings addressing racism.

There's a sweet innocence in the subject matter here; he lovingly depicts the four youths here singing on a street corner (one was his stepson). But the sweetness doesn't overwhelm the bold colors. And the presence of the steeple hints, at least to me, that they're singing a hymn, perhaps practicing for a performance at church, giving this nice scene a spiritual element.

Pippin died relatively young, but unlike so many other Black artists, he achieved fame and recognition in his lifetime, where he was hailed as one of the great folk artists of America.

From the Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, OH.

"A Passing Storm," Frederic Edwin Church, 1849.

Church (1826-1900) was one of the great American landscape painters and a central figure of the Hudson River School.

Church was a great realist but also infused his work with his religious faith, driving home a wonder of the glories of creation. He depicted a number of natural wonders, like waterfalls, glaciers, and volcanoes, but also doing things on a epic scale and making them emotionally affecting with his use of light.

He wasn't content with simply depicting American scenes...he traveled around the world, painting the Andes, rain forests, Mexican scenes, the Middle East, and Europe.

Interest in his work faded and by his death he was almost forgotten, but in the 1960s interest rose again. His home in Hudson, NY, was turned into a state historic site, and museums began to collect and display his work, now seen as emblematic of the optimism of 19th century America.

Let us be optimistic in the face of passing storms!

From the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.