Cavalier Ebanks Galleries Blog: July 2015

Tuesday, July 28, 2015

WORK OF THE WEEK: Peonies by Sarah Lamb

Sarah Lamb
Peonies
oil on canvas
22 x 23 inches

Throughout history peonies have been highly sought after for their beauty and symbolism. With their full, rounded bloom, peonies embody romance and prosperity and are regarded as an omen of good fortune and a happy marriage. Traditionally couples that are celebrating their 12th wedding anniversary are given peonies as present. In China, peonies symbolize nobility. During the Sui and Tang dynasty peonies were planted at the imperial palace and were considered a symbol for nobility and honor refereed to as, "flower of riches and honor" and "the king of flowers," only the emperor was allowed to own them. Peonies have since become the traditional flower symbol of China.

Sarah Lamb, a highly skilled realist painter, was born in Petersburg, Virginia. She graduated from the Brenau Women’s College in 1993 with a degree in Studio Art. During college she studied at the Studio Art Center in Florence, Italy. Following her graduation, she spent two years painting at the Ecole Albert Defois in France with artist Ted Seth Jacobs. Lamb moved to New York in 1997 and spent six years studying under Jacob Collins at the Water Street Atelier. Her painting style is very classical, she uses her sharp attention to detail to create exquisite still life, landscape, and trompe l’oeil paintings. She has had several solo shows and has exhibited in major galleries in Atlanta, Houston, San Francisco, Alexandria, New York, and Connecticut.

203.869.3664 or art@cavaliergalleries.com

Saturday, July 25, 2015

VIRTUAL TOUR: Nantucket Sculpture Garden

203.869.3664 or art@cavaliergalleries.com.

Tuesday, July 21, 2015

WORK OF THE WEEK: At The Royal Livingstone Hotel by Paul Oxborough

Paul Oxborough At The Royal Livingstone Hotel oil on canvas 30 x 60 inches

At the Royal Livingstone Hotel presents an impressionistic glimpse of The Travelers Bar at the famous Royal Livingstone Hotel in Livingstone, Zambia. Located on the Zambian side of World Heritage Site, Victoria Falls, the hotel's colonial-style buildings stretch along the banks of the Zambezi River. Named in honor of the explorer David Livingstone, the hotel's design reflects the elegance of days gone by. Born in Scotland, David Livingstone arrived in Africa in 1840 at the age of 27 as a missionary and physician. He spent most of the remainder of his life on the continent, his exploits making him the most famous explorer of the century. Livingstone was particularly interested in the Zambezi River area and it was during this expedition there that he became the first European to witness the magnificence of Victoria Falls. Paul Oxborough was greatly inspired by Livingstone, its history, people, and hotel and documented his travels there in studies and photographs that serve as inspiration for his paintings.

Paul Oxborough studied at Minneapolis College of Art and Design and Atelier Lesueur. He has exhibited numerous times at both the British and Scottish National Portrait Galleries, the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, as well as several other notable museums. Paul has had over a dozen solo shows and his work is included in collections world-wide. Known for his bravura brushwork and his ability to capture light, Oxborough's frequent travels provide inspiration for his work, allowing him to paint a seemingly unlimited variety of subjects from intimate portraits and interiors to outdoor figures and landscapes. He has received prestigious awards from organizations such as the British National Portrait Gallery, American Society of Portrait Artists, and the Smithsonian. His work has been featured in ARTNews Magazine, Fine Art Connoisseur, and CNN, to name a few.

Tuesday, July 14, 2015

WORK OF THE WEEK: "Blue Blanket" by Andrew Wyeth

Andrew Wyeth
Blue Blanket
Watercolor on paper
11 1/2 x 17 1/2 inches

Blue Blanket depicts a group of horses turned out in the pasture of Kuerner Farm one of the few remaining working farms in the region surrounding the artist’s Pennsylvania home. Andrew Wyeth’s Chadds Ford neighbors, Karl and Anna Kuerner, as well as the buildings and landscape of their farm, have served as subject matter for some of the artist’s most recognizable works. Though all of Wyeth’s art is drawn from his life experiences, his images of the Kuerner farm have particular personal resonance. Scholars have suggested that Wyeth found a father figure in Karl, his German-born neighbor who owned the property the artist had been fascinated with since childhood. In this engaging view of one of Wyeth’s most noteworthy subjects, a group of blanketed horses enjoy a bit of hay and some winter sunshine as they meander peacefully around the field. The blue-blanketed horse, Dentzel (apparently a particular favorite of the artist), stands out against the pale blue of the winter sky. In Wyeth’s signature style, this watercolor evokes the austerity of the wintry farm landscape, while also conveying a sense of the rolling Pennsylvania countryside in which it is located.

Andrew Wyeth was a visual artist, primarily a realist painter, working predominantly in a regionalist style. He was one of the best-known American artists of the mid 20th century, and was sometimes referred to as the “Painter of the People,” due to his work’s popularity with the American public. Wyeth’s favorite subjects were the land and the people around him, both in his hometown of Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, and at his summer home in Cushing, Maine. Andrew Wyeth was born in 1917 and was the youngest of five children of illustrator and artist Newell Convers (N.C.) Wyeth and Carolyn Bockius Wyeth. Andrew was home-tutored due to his frail health, and learned art from his father, who inspired his son’s love of rural landscapes, and a sense of romance. Wyeth started drawing at a young age, and with his father’s guidance, he mastered figure study and watercolor, and later learned egg tempera from brother-in-law Peter Hurd. He studied art history on his own, admiring many masters of Renaissance and American painting, especially Winslow Homer. In 1937, at age twenty, Wyeth had his first one-man exhibition of paintings at the Macbeth Gallery in New York City. The entire inventory of his works sold out. Wyeth became famed for the quality of realism and detail found in his art, often creating moody pastorals. Exhibitions of his art, which were shown internationally, often brought in record numbers of museum visitors. Wyeth also went on to receive many honors. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1963 and later received the Congressional Gold Medal in 1990 from President George H.W. Bush, the first artist to receive the award. Wyeth died on January 16, 2009, at the age of 91, in the town of his birth.

This painting will be included in Betsy James Wyeth's forthcoming catalogue raisonné of the artist's work.

Tuesday, July 7, 2015

WORK OF THE WEEK: "Captain Manter" by Eastman Johnson

Eastman Johnson
Captain Manter, 1873
oil on panel
13 1/2 x 9 1/4 inches

Nathan H. Manter (1819-1897) was the beloved captain of the Nantucket steamboat Island Home from 1860 to 1891. Manter was one of the retired mariners whom Eastman Johnson befriended and painted repeatedly in his Nantucket scenes. Born on Nantucket, he went to sea at the age of seventeen on the Nantucket whaleship Congress (1835-1838), and later commanded the Nantucket whaling schooner William P. Dolliver (1854). During his service as mate of the 1848-1852 cruise of the New Bedford ship Java, he was mistakenly reported as killed by a whale. He retired from whaling and joined the Nantucket Steamboat Company as first officer of the steamer Massachusetts and subsequently as captain of the Telegraph during the laying of cable from Cape Cod to Nantucket on April 19, 1856. He soon took command of the steamship Island Home, aboard which he would serve for the remainder of his career, with a remarkable record of safety, retiring in 1891. Captain Manter's funeral service was held at his home on Federal Street. Many businesses and stores were closed, flags throughout town were flown at half-mast, and the steamer Island Home's bell tolled as a token of respect for her departed captain of thirty-one years. His photographic portrait circa October 1883 may be viewed in the Nantucket Historical Association's collection.

Eastman Johnson was best known for his genre paintings and his portraits both of everyday people and prominent Americans such as Abraham Lincoln, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. His later works often show the influence of the 17th-century Dutch masters, whom he studied in The Hague in the 1850s. Johnson was known as "The American Rembrandt" in his day. He first visited Nantucket in 1869, and soon took up seasonal residence on the island, purchasing a home and artists studio on North Street (now Cliff Road). The artist's island sojourns would inspire some of his most enduring works. Following the completion of his masterpiece Nantucket landscape The Cranberry Harvest, Johnson turned his attention to portraiture, taking advantage of the community of grizzled veterans of the sea who haunted Nantucket in the twilight of the nineteenth century, as well as his new neighbors who included retired mariners, civic officials, and practicing artists.

Johnson was one of the original founders of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Metropolitan Museum of Art's earliest roots date back to 1866 in Paris, France, when a group of Americans agreed to create a "national institution and gallery of art" to bring art and art education to the American people. The lawyer John Jay, who proposed the idea, swiftly moved forward with the project upon his return to the United States from France. Under Jay's presidency, the Union League Club in New York rallied civic leaders, businessmen, artists, art collectors, and philanthropists to the cause. On April 13, 1870, The Metropolitan Museum of Art was incorporated, opening to the public in the Dodworth Building at 681 Fifth Avenue.

Wednesday, July 1, 2015

NEWS: Bruno Lucchesi featured in International Artist Magazine

Cavalier Galleries artist, Bruno Lucchesi, is the subject of a four page article titled, The Art of the Portrait: BRUNO LUCCHESI Reflections of a Sculptor, in International Artist Magazine June/July 2015 Issue 103 on Pages 32-35.

You can also visit us on 1stdibs to purchase selected works online.