Lot Details
Lot 199
Johann Berthelsen American, 1832-1972 United Nations at Night from the East River
American, 1832-1972
United Nations at Night from the East River
Signed Johann Berthelsen (lr); inscribed on the reverse
Oil on canvas
23 7/8 x 30 inches
Provenance:
The artist
Virginia Warren Daly and John Charles Daly
In his lifetime, Johann Berthelsen was praised for his nocturnes, as seen in a printed document excerpting a variety of contemporary criticism and signed by the artist himself. An unidentified writer for The New York Times likens his work on view at the Gatterdam Gallery to the "overt poetry and misty atmosphere of James MacNeill Whistler," remarking that "Mr. Berthelsen paints the East River and Central Park rather than the Thames and Piccadilly, but like Whistler, and unlike so many contemporary artists, he 'sees nature artistically.' Such canvases as 'Central Park South,' 'Evening Lights,' 'South of fifty-ninth Street' have a gentle and insinuating charm."
In reviewing an exhibition at the Fine Arts Society building, a critic for The New York Herald-Tribune found Berthelsen's nocturnes particularly noteworthy, commenting that he "has discovered in the night vistas from Central Park a source of nocturne subjects that are poetic in themselves and imaginative in their appeal. Behind the veil of mist, with its embroidery of lights, there is a marked feeling for structure, which gives a firmness to the whole composition, resulting in that always pleasing combination of impression, strength, and delicacy."
Estate of Virginia Warren Daly
Additional Notes & Condition Report
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