Samuel Colman (American, 1832-1920). The Boating Party, circa 1859. Oil on canvas. 15 x 24 inches (38.1 x 61.0 cm). Sign...

Description

Samuel Colman (American, 1832-1920)
The Boating Party, circa 1859
Oil on canvas
15 x 24 inches (38.1 x 61.0 cm)
Signed lower left: S. Colman

Property from the Collection of Santander Bank

PROVENANCE:
Allison Gallery, New York.

An important landscape painter of the second generation of Hudson River School painters, Samuel Colman traveled widely and eventually went far beyond the Hudson River for subject matter. As evidenced by masterworks such as The Boating Party, Colman's goal was not to create a dramatic scene, but a delicate reflection of nature's awe-inspiring beauty.

Born and raised in Portland, Maine, Colman at an early age moved to New York City, where his father, a publisher and fine-art books dealer, introduced him to many of the leading artists and writers of the time. He studied with Asher B. Durand, a leader of the Hudson River School of painters, and by the time he was eighteen was exhibiting at the National Academy of Design and by age twenty-two was elected an Associate.

Colman was a true Renaissance man: In addition to painting in his exemplary fashion, the artist wrote two books on art: Nature's Harmonic Unity and Proportional Form. He was also an etcher, art collector, an authority on oriental art and porcelains, and an interior designer, working with John La Farge and Louis Tiffany.

Colman created many large canvases of European, United States, Canadian, and Mexican subjects, especially scenes along the Hudson River and the White Mountains of New Hampshire. He also traveled to North Africa in the 1870s, and one of his most impressive works, The Moorish Mosque of Sidi Halou, Tlemcen, Algeria (1875) is in the Edna Barnes Solomon collection of the New York Public Library. Although he did not consider himself a Luminist in style, he manipulated light to create a glittery, silvery atmosphere, and others have called him a Luminist. Unlike his contemporary Albert Bierstadt, he was not trying to create a sense of drama or of the grandiose; his works were sensitive and suggested quiet beauty.

Demonstrating a unique balance of the subtle luminescence of the Barbizon school and the lucid style of the fully-evolved Hudson River School, Colman finds his own place in the history of landscape painting. With works held widely in public and private collections, his paintings reflect the "quiet beauty" he found in nature. According to noted journalist and author Samuel Greene Wheeler Benjamin: "The style of Mr. Colman, both in oil and watercolors has been very effective; he has painted some very strong effects of light and shade, and his coloring has a brilliance that is so harmonious as to influence one like a strain of music."


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