Lot Details
Lot 189
Max Kuehne
American, 1880-1968
Rockport Harbor, 1919
Signed Kuehne and dated 19 (lr); signed, dated and titled on the reverse
Oil on canvas laid to board
20 1/8 x 24 1/8 inches
Provenance:
Montross Gallery, New York
Max Kuehne turned to painting relatively late, first pursuing formal art training at the age of twenty-seven with William Merritt Chase and Robert Henri in New York. In 1910, Kuehne left to study and travel in Europe, evolving his own mature approach to his work. He first visited Cape Ann, Massachusetts in 1912, adopting a more brilliant palette than the somber tones that he had employed previously. He returned to Cape Ann once again in 1918. After 1920 he spent every summer there, establishing a studio in Rockport, Massachusetts in a space formerly occupied by Jonas Lie.
The present work, however, depicts Rockport, Maine, where Kuehne spent the summer of 1919, at the suggestion of George Bellows. Depicting gentle slopes inclining down to a sheltered harbor, the present work, radiant with "sparkling sunlight," captures the essence of a summer day in New England. From August 18-28 of that year, a group of Kuehne's paintings were exhibited at the Print Room of the Jesup Memorial Library in Bar Harbor. It is not clear if the present work was among the group shown. The exhibition was arranged by A. E. Gallatin, who wrote an article about Kuehne in The International Studio, praising him as a "colourist of great distinction."
Albert E. Gallatin, "The Paintings of Max Kuehne," The International Studio, Sep. 1919, vol. 68, no. 271.
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