When Renoir Doubted Impressionism

Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919) was, along with Claude Monte and Camille Pissarro, a major French Impressionist whose painting style is archetypically "Impressionistic" in the minds of most viewers. (On the other hand Edgar Degas, although considered one of the original band of French Impressionists, painted in a more traditional style.)

Were I into pop-psychology, I might assert that Renoir experienced a "mid-life crisis" in 1883 when he was in his early 40s. He began to doubt his Impressionist painting style and experimented with a more delineated, harder-edge approach inspired by his admiration of Ingres (who Picasso also claimed to admire). This is noted in his Wikipedia entry and elsewhere on the Internet. It is also discussed in this book by Anne Distel, a Musée d'Orsay curator.

Renoir's wanderings in a not-quite-Impressionist wilderness lasted roughly five years (1883-88). He then picked up where he had left off stylistically.

But not entirely. From time to time he continued to make paintings featuring more sharply defined subjects. And not just commissioned portraits; the final painting below was done for his own purposes in 1896.

Gallery

Luncheon of the Boating Party - 1880-81

On the Terrace - 1881
To set the scene are the two paintings above, made not long before he modified his style.

Les parapluies - ca. 1880-86
As this link notes, Renoir began "The Umbrellas" around 1880-81 and then reworked and completed it about 1885-86. It notes that the right side seems to have been painted first and the left part later. So it is a stylistic hybrid that Renoir was hesitant to sell for several years.

Children's Afternoon at Wargemont - 1884

Bather Arranging Her Hair - 1885

The Large Bathers - 1887

The Washerwomen - ca. 1888

La famille de l'artiste - 1896

Eric H.W. Robertson: Both Traditional and Modernist

Scottish painter Eric Harald Macbeth Robertson (1887-1941) is essentially a cipher, so far as information about him on the Internet is concerned. In fact, most of what I could find regarding him was on this Wikipedia entry dealing with his first wife, Cecile Walton (1891-1956), daughter of the Glasgow Boy, Edward Arthur Walton.

The link above mentions that he was trained in architecture, but shifted his attention to painting. From the evidence of a photo of him in uniform in the link along with a painting (see below), Robertson served in some capacity in the Great War. Finally, it seems that he was a heavy drinker, this affecting his peculiar marriage arrangement and quite likely his artistic career.

So why am I bothering to write about Robertson? Because he is one of those painters who flipped back and forth between traditional painting and various degrees of modernism -- sometimes even working those styles at around the same time. Moreover, I find many of his images appealing. Others seem to be of the same mind because, even though there is essentially no biographical information, the Internet has a fair number of images of his paintings.

Gallery

Spring - 1913

Beauty Luxuriant - ca. 1919?

Shellburst

Robert the Bruce and de Bohun

The Daughters of Beauty (part)

Cartwheels - ca. 1920-21

Dance Rhythm

Cecile - 1922

Wynne Walker (the artist's later wife) - ca. 1924

Ralph Pallen Coleman: He Stayed in Philadelphia

Ralph Pallen Coleman (1892-1968) carved out a respectable career as an illustrator while remaining a notch below others who were famous and often better known to the public than the authors whose stories they illustrated.

Could this have been because he spent his life in the Philadelphia area? Whereas Philadelphia might strike some readers as a backwater of sorts, for the first half of the 20th century and a while beyond, it was a very important place so far as illustration was concerned. That was because the Curtis Publishing Company was based there, close by Independence Hall. And Curtis' stable of magazines included Saturday Evening Post and Ladies' Home Journal, each having huge circulation numbers in their day. So being close to this source of work was no handicap for an illustrator.

Coleman's career is outlined here. The source mentions that one of his art instructors was the "difficult" master illustrator Walter Everett, who I last wrote about here. The link also indicates that Coleman drifted away from commercial illustration in the 1940s to producing religious illustrations, murals, and such in the later part of his career. I will deal with his non-religious art here.

Gallery

Blue Book cover - January 1921
One of the earliest works that I could find.

Story illustration - 1922
Somehow this seems to have been done a few years later than the date shown where I grabbed this image, but of course I could be wrong.

Story illustration - early 1930s
The date under Coleman's signature block is smudged, but the woman's gown and hairdo push this beyond the 1920s. The vignette format seen here and immediately above and below was popular with art directors in those days. Illustrators probably liked it too, because they didn't have to spend a lot of effort on backgrounds and settings.

"To Look Before You Leap" - American Magazine - February 1932
Here Coleman is using outlines and drawing rather than creating a traditional painting.

"An Atlantic Adventure" - Cosmopolitan - August 1934
Interesting combination of framed and vignetted art. I'm pretty sure that the white space was used for a headline and / or text in the magazine.

Home Arts cover - February 1937
This magazine dealt with sewing crafts, and so had a somewhat different core audience than the Post, Cosmo and such. Coleman seems to have altered his style to deal with this, quite possibly in line with the art director's wishes.

"Calcutta Adventure" - 1940
Yet another two-color vignette.

Motor Age cover - July 1944
Just because he was transitioning to religious art didn't mean that Coleman was a total prude.

Emil Nolde's Style Trumped NSDAP Loyalty

I include the tag "Political art" for this post about Expressionist artist Emil Nolde (1867-1956) not because his art featured political subjects, but because his political position failed to overcome Nazi opposition to "degenerate" (modernist) art.

He was born Emil Hansen in the the border area of Germany and Denmark, later changing his last name to that of the town near where he was born. Nolde got a late start in painting, seeking training when in his early 30s. He was a modernist, first influenced by Impressionism, but gave that style up to become an expressionist. In the early twentieth century he was associated with Die Brücke and then with Der Blaue Reiter, key groups in early 1900s German Expressionism.

Nolde's Wikipedia entry is here, and another fairly long account of his career can be found here. For Nolde's relationship to the Nazi party and its dealings with his art, a useful source is this book.

It seems that Nolde was a Nazi party member -- but of the Danish, not the German one. He was a strong supporter of Hitler, but the regime favored völkisch art (traditional in technique, featuring Nordic, countryside and heroic subjects, among others). Expressionism of Nolde's kind fell into what was by the late 1930s considered "degenerate" art by Hitler's regime, and a number of his paintings were pulled from state galleries and some included in a exhibit of modernist art considered worthy of scorn. So his Nazi affiliations well as support by some high in the party hierarchy were not enough to counteract his style of painting in the earlier years of his career. He retreated to the land of his birth and worked largely in watercolor during the late 30s and the war years.

Gallery

Printemps dans la chambere (Springtime in the Room) - 1904
This was painted not long after his marriage, so the subject might be his wife. The style is Impressionist, but with a hint of Fauve coloring.

Dance Around the Golden Calf - 1910
By 1910, Nolde was in full expressionist mode.

Spectators at the Cabaret - 1911

Crucifixion - 1912
He came from a religious background and painted some religious subjects such as the crucifixion of Christ.

Nadja

Verlorenes Paradies (Paradise Lost) - 1921
Adam seem miffed regarding Eve.

Frauenkopf mit roten Haar (Woman with Red Hair) - 1925

The Sea at Dusk
I have no date for this, though I think it might be a watercolor from the years when Nolde was in disfavor and spent most of his time in Seebüll, near the Danish border.

NOTE: The NSDAP in the title of this post refers to the National Socialist German Worker's Party, the German language version being commonly abbreviated to "Nazi." The term "national socialist" was intended to distinguish the party from international socialism, the leading generic leftist concept of 1920.

Earl Cordrey's Smooth Style Illustrations

Earl Somers Cordrey (1902-1977) spent his life and career in southern California aside from the 15 years (1927-1942) he was in the New York area, the heartland of American publishing and illustration in those days.

Biographical information about him on the Internet is thin indeed; the most I could find is here. A source containing a number of samples of his work is here.

Regardless of the medium he used, Cordrey favored the clean, very slightly simplified type of image that was fashionable in the 1930s.

Gallery

Young woman - 1936

Story illustration, Woman's Home Companion - 2 April 1937

Duraglas advertisement - 1941

Story illustration - ca. 1941

Mallory Hats advertisement - 1942
Cordrey illustrated for Mallory for several years, but the company was sold to Stetson in 1946 and the brand was essentially gone by the mid-1950s.

Story Illustration - early-mid 1940s

Collier's story illustration - 1944

Palm Springs publicity illustration
Cordrey must have moved to this resort area by the 1950s because he was busy with the local magazine as well as publicity work such as shown here.  His shift to a cartoon style is striking, but hardly unknown to illustrators intent on economic survival.

Charles Constantine Hoffbauer, Versatile Franco-American

Charles Hoffbauer (1875-1957) was a French artist who spent much of his career in the United States. A useful summary of his career is here. It mentions that he "enrolled at the École National des Beaux-Arts where his peers included Henri Matisse, Georges Rouault, and Albert Marquet." After his army service: "In 1898, Hoffbauer’s first submission to the Paris Salon was awarded Honorable Mention, and the following year he became the youngest artist to earn a Gold Medal and be deemed Hors Concours -- a status he held for seven years."

So he got off to a good start. As might be expected, his early paintings were traditional in style. But around the time he turned 30, he adopted a looser technique that had Impressionist overtones when it came to color. But it might also be said that he was a tiny bit expressionistic in his handling of forms, especially when he was in his forties.

Much of his American work in the 1920s was as just described. But he had received a commission to paint Civil War murals for the Battle Abbey at the Confederate Memorial Institute at Richmond, Virginia (see here). This work was painted traditionally and was done both before and following the Great War which interrupted it, Hoffbauer returning to France to serve in the army. Later on, he worked in film animation.

I'm inclined to place Hoffbauer as a fine-artist whose work came close to illustration. Nothing wrong with that; most of the Masters fall into that category as well.

Gallery

A Masked Ball - c. 1901
An early painting, still under the influence of his academic training.

At the Ball - 1905

La sortie de l'Opéra - 1905

Dîner sur le Toit - 1905

In the Restaurant - 1905
A set of Belle Époche images.

Jeune femme à la lecture
A rather unusual style and subject for Hoffbauer.

German Prisoners
Painted during the Great War while he was in the army.

Broadway sous la neige, devant l'Hotel Astor, New York - 1925
Apologies for the blurred image, but it's the best I could locate.

Herald Square, New York
Other sources have titles mentioning rainy streets in New York, but Herald Square this is. The tall, dark building in the center is the Times Building and building at the right with the arcade is the Herald Building.

Metropolitan Life Tower, New York
The smaller tower at the left was part of the original Madison Square Garden.

Times Square at Night
The Times Building is on the left (we are looking south). The building with the Turkish and American flags is the Hotel Astor.

Spring: Stonewall Jackson reviewing his troops in the Shenandoah Valley
An explanation as to how Hoffbauer did the murals is here.