Hovsep Pushman (American, 1877-1966). My Golden Yesterdays. Oil and gold leaf on panel. 28 x 24-1/4 inches (71.1 x 61.6 ...

Description

Hovsep Pushman (American, 1877-1966)
My Golden Yesterdays
Oil and gold leaf on panel
28 x 24-1/4 inches (71.1 x 61.6 cm)
Signed lower right: Pushman

PROVENANCE:
The artist;
Estate of the above;
Private collection, acquired from the above, circa 2007;
Christies, New York, May 23, 2013, lot 116;
Private collection, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

A master of contemplative still life and spiritual symbolism, Hovsep Pushman occupies a singular place in twentieth-century American art, producing meticulously rendered works that evoke a profound sense of inner quiet and metaphysical reflection. In My Golden Yesterdays, Pushman exemplifies the stylistic and philosophical cohesion that defines his mature oeuvre-offering a meditative tableau that seamlessly merges East Asian iconography with Western traditions of still life painting, all imbued with the mysticism of gold leaf and glowing chiaroscuro.

Born in Armenia and trained in both Paris and Chicago, Pushman brought to his work a hybrid sensibility shaped by diasporic experience and cosmopolitan education. His fascination with Eastern objects, while grounded in genuine reverence, inevitably intersects with the historical currents of Orientalism. Like many artists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Pushman collected and depicted objects from East Asia and the Near East in ways that both celebrated their aesthetic power and filtered them through a Western lens of mystique and timelessness. Unlike the more overtly exoticizing approaches of his contemporaries, however, Pushman's Orientalism is one of interiority and restraint. His works do not seek to dramatize or colonize the "other," but instead position these cultural artifacts as vessels of quiet power and transcendent calm. Still, they invite continued critical reflection on the dynamics of cultural appropriation and admiration, particularly given the spiritual aura he bestows upon objects separated from their original religious or cultural contexts.

My Golden Yesterdays features a finely balanced arrangement of artifacts-chief among them, a richly detailed seated figure of a bodhisattva, flanked by a lustrous ceramic plate and a small, iridescent vessel. Bathed in warm, amber-toned light, the composition exudes a quiet dignity. Pushman's use of oil on panel affords a surface that absorbs and refracts light with uncommon subtlety, while the inclusion of gold leaf animates the work with a sense of sacred timelessness. The objects, though physically static, suggest spiritual mobility: they are emissaries of a distant past, bearers of cultural wisdom, and agents of meditative stillness. The backdrop-delicately decorated with natural motifs-deepens the impression of layered history, allowing the viewer to reflect not only on the aesthetic qualities of these objects, but also on the emotional and metaphysical space they inhabit.

Ultimately, My Golden Yesterdays stands as a luminous example of Pushman's ability to transform still life into a vehicle for philosophical rumination. Through subtle color harmonies, reverent lighting, and the spiritual gravitas of his chosen objects, Pushman offers a visual poem on memory and presence-an invitation to contemplate the wisdom embedded in the material traces of other worlds.

The present work is included in the virtual catalogue raisonné of the artist's work as number HP0084 (No. 345).


More information about Hovsep Pushman. See also: Pushman, Hovsep, Pushman, Hovsep T, Pushman, Hovsep T. Artist.



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