Lot Details
Lot 153
Edmund William Greacen
American, 1877-1949
Spring Garden, 1909
Signed Edmund Greacen and dated 1909 (lr)
Oil on canvas
26 1/8 x 32 1/8 inches
Provenance:
Robert Rice Gallery, Houston
Grand Central Art Galleries, New York
Mr. and Mrs. Haig Tashjian, New York
Sotheby's, New York, Sterling Regal Collection, May 25, 1988, lot 6
Private collection, New York
Exhibited:
Southampton, New York, Parrish Art Museum, Paintings from the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Haig Tashjian, Apr. 7-Jun. 6, 1982, pp. 57-58, fig. 6, illus. (travelling exhibition)
Montclair, New Jersey, Montclair Art Museum, Oct. 1-Nov. 30, 1983
Evanston, Illinois, Terra Museum of American Art, Dec. 13, 1983-Feb. 12, 1984
Seattle, Washington, Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, Down Garden Paths, Mar. 2-May 27, 1984, p. 39, illus.(travelling exhibition)
Like others of his generation, Edmund Greacen pursued artistic studies in America, enrolling at the Art Students League in New York before attending the Chase School. Along with William Merritt Chase, famous for his declaration that "I'd rather go to Europe than go to heaven," in 1905 Greacen and his bride accompanied his summer class to Spain as well as other destinations, copying works and sketching en route. After Chase returned to America, the young couple continued their European sojourn, arriving in Paris in the fall of 1906 and progressing on to Giverny in 1907. There, Greacen joined the expatriate colony of American painters who had been drawn by the presence of Claude Monet, and along with Frederick Frieseke, Richard Edward Miller, Lawton Parker, Guy Rose and Karl Anderson, became part of the self-styled "Giverny Group." Already predisposed in favor of plein air painting from his studies with Chase, Greacen, along with his peers, adopted the brighter palette and broken brushstroke of Impressionism. In Giverny for two years, Greacen painted views along the river as well as local garden settings, often including his wife, Ethol, in his compositions. Returning to the United States in the late summer or early fall of 1909, Greacen returned to America, becoming active in the New York art community and in Old Lyme, which he first visited the following year. He continued to paint garden scenes, which his daughter described as "portraits," and which were widely admired. [Elizabeth Greacen Knudsen, "A Biography," Edmund W. Greacen, N. A., American Impressionist 1876-1949. Jacksonville, Florida: Cummer Gallery of Art, 1972], p. 9]
Dating from 1909, and depicting a garden in full bloom with a fountain and other statuary, the present work is identical in size with Greacen's French subjects from 1909. The composition is suffused with the pastel palette of late spring, described with a softer brushstroke than that employed by others of the Giverny group. The precise location of the property that inspired this tranquil scene is unknown, but it appears to have been painted toward the end of his European sojourn, or soon after his return to the United States.
In 1910, Greacen participated in the Exhibition of Independent Artists, and became a respected force in the New York art world, exhibiting regularly at the National Academy of Design as well as the Salmagundi Club. Along with John Singer Sargent, in 1923 he was a founder of the Painters and Sculptors Gallery Association, a non-profit organization later known as the Grand Central Art Galleries.
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