CHILDE HASSAM - Rediscovered in Oregon
A recently rediscovered Childe Hassam “Landscape, Eastern Oregon” will be included in Matthew’s Galleries' September 21, 2010 Fine & Decorative arts auction.
Painted in 1908 on one of the artist’s two trips to the West, the oil on board measures 5 1/8” x 8 ¼”, and is similar in size and character to “Rain Clouds over Oregon Desert” (Childe Hassam Impressionist in the West, Margaret E. Bullock, Portland Art Museum, Oregon, 2004, p. 65, plate 36).
The painting is signed lower left with the artist’s crescent mark, and fully signed twice on reverse. The original frame reverse bears a period Portland Art Museum exhibition label with the title and original owner’s name, C. E. S. Wood. Wood was a friend of Hassam, an artist, and one of the founders of the Portland Art Museum.
The cloudy landscape with a bare desert mountain, is typical of the work both Hassam and Wood produced on their plein air painting jaunts in Eastern Oregon. In its original 5” wide gilded frame, the Hassam is estimated at $14,000-18,000.
Other artists represented in this auction are Ralph Albert Blakelock, Alexander H. Wyant, Charles C. Eisele, to name a few.