Book Review: The Art of Aiden Lassell Ripley

6 July 2010 - by ArtfixDaily Staff

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"Covey in the Goldenrod, 1946,” watercolor on paper, 18½ by 28½ inches, A. Lassell Ripley.

An "informative and lavishly illustrated book, The Art of Aiden Lassell Ripley...has quickly become recognized as the most comprehensive effort to date on the artist," writes Antiques and the Arts. Co-authored by sporting art and decoy authority, dealer, author and auctioneer Stephen B. O'Brien Jr. and ARTFIXdaily publisher Julie Carlson Wildfeuer, the 226-page book (2009) reveals the life and art of one of America's premier sporting artists.

Drawn from primary sources, largely culled from the Archives of American Art, the new tome assembles a detailed picture of the painter's humble rise to prominence.

Aiden Lassell Ripley (1896-1969) first garnered popularity in the 1920s as a second generation Impressionist noted for his New England landscapes and genre scenes. By the 1930s he had found his niche as a sporting artist, depicting subjects that were close to his heart as a Massachusetts sportsman. His highly-detailed signature style emerged.

Ripley was an artist driven by his passions, each formed by his surroundings, including wildlife, hunting, fishing, nature, New England living, and colonial history. Even his quiet admiration of life in rural Lexington, Massachusetts, a place which figured largely in his ouevre for more than thirty years, garnered critical acclaim. Beating out the likes of Diego Rivera, Grant Wood, and Wassily Kandinsky at the Art Institute of Chicago's Fifteenth International Exhibition of Watercolors in 1936 was Ripley's first-place "Celery Garden, Lexington, Massachusetts," a dynamic yet simple farming scene painted from his home-studio window.

Read David S. Smith's review in Antiques & the Arts, or order the book online through Stephen B. O'Brien Jr. Fine Arts.

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