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Emil Bisstram
Stormy Coast Maine

1968

$12,000
£9,057.43
€10,380.02
CA$16,749.07
A$18,246.62
CHF 9,636.11
MX$219,046.09
NOK 122,775.09
SEK 112,211.83
DKK 77,537.50

About the Item

Singed lower right and dated 1968. Hungarian born, Emil Bisttram became one of the Southwest's leading painters and teachers. He was a founder of the Transcendental Art movement in New Mexico, devoted to themes exploring and promoting universal meaning that included idealistic forms and colors that suggested sounds. In Stormy Coast, Maine, Emil Bisttram turns his modernist eye toward the Atlantic seaboard, capturing the raw drama of ocean, rock, and sky. The composition is anchored by the rugged, rust-colored shoreline, against which waves crash in bursts of white spray. Beyond, the sea churns in deep teal and green, its surface alive with turbulence. A ship, barely visible through sheets of rain, presses forward on the horizon, while a distant island offers a moment of stillness amid the storm. Heavy clouds descend in vertical streaks of rain, creating a curtain between sea and sky. Painted in 1968, this work demonstrates Bisttram’s ability to balance representational fidelity with a modernist sense of rhythm and design. The verticality of the rain, the diagonal thrust of the waves, and the solidity of the rocks create a dynamic interplay of forces, echoing his lifelong interest in the spiritual and geometric underpinnings of art. Although best known as a co-founder of the Transcendental Painting Group in Taos, New Mexico, Bisttram’s career was marked by a wide-ranging exploration of both abstraction and representation. His transcendental works sought to express universal harmony through geometry and color, yet he never abandoned the natural world as a source of inspiration. By the late 1960s, Bisttram was synthesizing decades of experimentation. Stormy Coast, Maine reflects his engagement with the American landscape tradition—particularly the Romantic sublime of the 19th century—while filtering it through a modernist lens. The painting resonates with the legacy of artists such as Winslow Homer, who also found in the Maine coast a stage for nature’s elemental drama. Yet Bisttram’s treatment is distinctly his own: the storm is not only meteorological but metaphysical, a meditation on the tension between permanence and flux, order and chaos. This work thus occupies an important place in Bisttram’s oeuvre, bridging his transcendental ideals with a representational mode that underscores the enduring dialogue between modernism and the American landscape tradition.
  • Creator:
    Emil Bisstram
  • Creation Year:
    1968
  • Dimensions:
    Height: 24 in (60.96 cm)Width: 32 in (81.28 cm)
  • Medium:
  • Movement Style:
  • Period:
  • Condition:
  • Gallery Location:
    Saratoga Springs, NY
  • Reference Number:
    1stDibs: LU1702461622

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