SYDNEY M. LAURENCE (American, 1865-1940). Seascape, St. Ives, 1890. Oil on canvas. 12 x 24 inches (30.5 x 61.0 cm). Sign...

Description

SYDNEY M. LAURENCE (American, 1865-1940)
Seascape, St. Ives, 1890
Oil on canvas
12 x 24 inches (30.5 x 61.0 cm)
Signed, dated and titled lower right: S.M. Laurence / St. Ives 1890

THE JEAN AND GRAHAM DEVOE WILLIFORD CHARITABLE TRUST

Brooklyn-born landscape painter Sydney Laurence enjoyed a long and prolific career on both sides of the Atlantic, but is best-known as the first professionally-trained artist to live and paint Alaska. Following his studies at the Art Students' League in New York, Laurence and his wife traveled to England, settling in 1889 in the picturesque English artists' colony of St. Ives, Cornwall from 1889 to 1898. The present work dates from the end of his first year there, and shows the gently breaking surf in a long panoramic format favored by many landscapists of the period. Over the next decade he exhibited at the Royal Society of British Artists and was included in the Paris Salon in 1890, 1894, and 1895, winning an award in 1894. For reasons that are still unclear, Laurence abandoned his family and moved to Alaska in 1903 or 1904. Living the hard life of the pioneer prospector, he painted little in his first years in the territory, but between 1911 and 1914 he began to focus once again on his art. He moved from Valdez to the budding town of Anchorage in 1915 and by 1920 was Alaska's most prominent painter.


More information about SYDNEY M. LAURENCE. See also: Laurence, Sydney, Laurence, Sidney Mortimer, Lawrence, Sydney M., Sydney M. Laurence Artist.

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