Impressionists
American (1853-1932)
Afternoon Landscape, circa 1907
Oil on canvas, 24 1/2 x 29 1/2 inches
Signed Emil Carlsen lower left
Provenance
Collection of Duncan Phillips
Macbeth Gallery, New York
Edwin C. Shaw, Akron, Ohio, September 1922
The Estates James A. & Dorothy C. Vaughn, Sea Island, Georgia
Exhibited
New London, Connecticut, Lyman Allyn Art Museum, A Good Summer’s Work: J. Alden Weir, Connecticut Impressionist, May 7-September 11, 2016
Literature
David A. Cleveland with foreword by John Wilmerding, A History of American Tonalism: 1880-1920, Manchester and New York, Hudson Hills Press, 2010, p. 524-525, fig. 8.106, color illustrated
Note
This painting depicts the Windham, Connecticut home of Carlsen’s friend and fellow artist, Julian Alden Weir.
Description
While Emil Carlsen had developed a reputation early in his career as one of late nineteenth-century America’s preeminent still life painters, by the turn of the next century he was renowned for the many landscapes he chose to represent his work at exhibitions throughout the country.
Afternoon Landscape, painted at the Windham, Connecticut home of his close friend J. Alden Weir, reflects Carlsen’s unique approach to landscape painting. As in his still life compositions, in which the considered placement of evocative articles and the close values of their jewel-like surfaces elevate these works into objects of beauty and contemplation, this nestled sprawl of ancient buildings is unified into a total harmony through the artist’s masterful touch and subtle coloration.