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| Frederick Carl Frieseke The Garden Parasol (c. 1910) oil on canvas, 57¹⁄₈ X 77 in. |
In the American colony of painters in Giverny, France, there were strong beliefs that all work should be done directly from Nature, and that the subject of all paintings, no matter the objects filling the canvas, was always Light. What this meant for the small community, which included artists such as Frederick Frieseke, Richard Miller, Lawton Parker, Guy Rose, Karl Anderson, Edmund Graecen, Louis Ritman, and Karl Buehr, was that they were all painting out-of-doors on the same sunny days. The advantage they had as a group was that, working alongside each other, they could share resources - from models to props. Often, familiar elements, if not familiar poses, will be seen amongst the work produced by these artists during their time in Giverny.
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| Karl Buehr Under the Parasol (c. 1910) oil on canvas 36½ X 28½ in. |
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| Richard Miller Afternoon Tea (1910) distemper, 39½ X 32 in. |
Many of the Giverny Group painted on the property of Frederick Frieseke, who, following in the footsteps of his next-door neighbor, Claude Monet, designed his property to be used in his artwork†. Certain trees, flower beds, lawn furniture (painted "Monet Green"), and reflecting pools can be found again and again in the works of all these American painters from this place and period. The interior of Frieseke's house was also decorated for use as painting backdrops, with its walls of lemon yellow, doors of emerald green, and and curtains and furniture covers of densely-patterned floral designs.¹ (Frieseke preferred not to paint in his studio, and on gray or rainy days, would reluctantly paint indoors, in his home, relying only on the natural light coming through his windows).
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| Karl Buehr Young Lady with her Sunshade Under the Trees oil on canvas 36 X 28 in. |
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| Richard Miller Summer Reverie (1914) 36 X 29 in. |
†(To be fair, Frieseke was not the gardener that was Monet. Frieseke had little knowledge of flowers, and never did detailed paintings of flowers, preferring instead to paint the effects of light encountered when viewing larger beds. It was Frieseke's wife who planted and maintained the garden which featured so prominently in the Giverny Group's paintings).²
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| Karl Buehr Repose (c. 1915) |
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| Richard Miller Reverie (c. 1913) 45 X 58 in. |
When the Americans vacated Giverny just prior to the outbreak of World War I, many returned home to establish new artist colonies, finding they preferred the advantages of working in a community of artists, rather than working alone. Many also continued the tradition of designing their homes with less attention being paid to living comfort, than to the home's potential use as a painting background.
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| Richard Miller's work on his Provincetown home earned it an article in the January 1937 issue of The American Home magazine. |
3 comments:
Anderson and Frieseke were fellow classmates of J.C. Leyendecker in Vanderpoel's antique class at the Chicago Art Institute. Anderson actually replaced Leyendecker at "J.C. Mantz and Company" when the latter departed for Paris.
P.S. I hope you are planning a post on Miller's illustration work. Would love to see more.
Another great post as usual, Matthew. But does it strike only me as somewhat fishy that Karl Buehr grabbed the same model that Richard Miller used two years earlier and posed her in the same dress, shoes, posture and lighting (right down to the open door behind her) and painted her from "life"? HHHmmmm... :-)
Hmmmm Kevin.... I'd have to say it is more of a matter of the people cataloging one artist's work not cross-referencing the work of the another artist who obviously had his easel right next to the first. I guess "circa" can cover a multitude of chronological errors. I found it funny too, and almost put 1914 down for the year Buehr painted "Young Lady with her Sunshade Under the Trees" based solely on the year of Miller's "Summer Reverie," but decided to leave such decisions to the dealer currently selling Buehr's painting. Perhaps the lesson here for artists is to always catalog their works accurately, including putting dates on their paintings.
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