American Masterpieces from Dryads Green Gallery (Please Scroll Down--Catalogue is Alphabetical by Artist Last Name)

Artist Name:  Edward Emerson Simmons Artist Dates:         1852 - 1931 Painting Title:       NY Harbor Scene Painting Date:      Undated Medium:              Oil on Board Signature:             Finely Incised LR Provenance:         Skinner Condition:            Good Size Unframed:     12 x 16 Size Framed:         17 x 21 Frame Condition:   Antique Worn Artist Best Price:   $137,000 Our Price:             SOLD

Curator's Comments: Simmons, the nephew of Ralph Waldo Emerson, started out in Boston, and after Harvard soon found himself on the traditional turn-of-the-century path taken by his fellow American master painters. He went to Paris in 1878, studying at the Academie Julian with Boulanger and Lefebvre. Next he painted in Concarneau and Pont Aven, where he met the Harrisons et al. His La Blanchisseuse won an honorable mention at the Salon of 1882, and more important he joined with the Harrisons in the key cadre of natives and expatriots who were chosen for the American rooms in the 1889 Paris Universal Exhibition celebrating the French Revolution, which is now the subject of a major art historical study by Annette Blaugrund. We think this critical exhibit, which saw the largest American contingent ever, chosen by Chase in the U.S. and Alexander Harrison in Paris (Simmons was on the expatriot jury), is the key to the first half of the next century when it comes to future talent. We are proud to own a number of works by the chosen American artists, who are indeed a who's who of subsequent success.  Simmons continued on to the St. Ives art colony in Cornwall and came in contact with Theodore Robinson and much more importantly, with Whistler. Whistler had a strong influence on the luminous marine seascapes Simmons had first started in Concarneau. Simmon's Night, a four by five seascape masterpiece was chosen for the 1889 Exhibition, and this silver predecessor of our New York Harbor Scene shows his precise focus on the luminous, which was to undergo a subtle shift towards a more  impressionistic effect that clearly reflects the influence of a series of brilliant harmonic monotones of St. Ives Bay rendered by Whistler in 1883-84. Simons returned to the U.S. in 1891, and took up mural painting, which provided a number of successful and important opportunities, but his easel work got him included in the Ten, America’s premier early Impressionist-influenced  group, whose members included, Childe Hassam, Thomas W. Dewing, Willard Metcalf and J. Alden Weir. Simmons, and Weir designed stained glass windows, and The Light Bearer, a rare window creation in stained glass by Simmons, produced at the New York Tiffany Studios in 1894 under the artist's supervision, is a masterpiece of the American opalescent glass period. Simmons had earlier, in 1892, created an opalescent "Symphony in White" remarkable in its subtle intensity with his Harvard Civil War Memorial windows, which were also fabricated at Tiffany's New York studio. Our New York Harbor Scene is a gem dating from this period—and shows influences of tonalism as transformed by the influence of Whistler as well as the perfect opalescence of Simmons’ glass painting. It is a remarkably simple painting—that only the most completely talented painter that Simmons was could create—a painting which connects sky and sea to show us that the sky is the sea and not simply its mirror image, and in much the same way the ferry meets and becomes its covered docking station. We think Simmons’ painting lives by capturing these transformations with absolute brilliance and perfect tonality. Simmons remained in New York to do the murals of New York's famous Waldorf-Astoria hotel (then the Astoria), but subsequently, as WWI dawned, returned to full-time easel painting and settled in Baltimore.

You may contact us at:

Click on link for:

Email:

director@dryadsgreengallery.com

Sales Archive Index

Phone: 646-239-6142

Artist Directory

Home

Terms & Conditions