Farquhar McGillvray Knowles

Nocturnal Bathers

A fine impressionist view of a New Jersey Beach, possibly Atlantic City, at the turn of the 20th century by American artist William Gilbert Gaul (1855–191...

An exceptional impressionist beachside scene with figures and powerful clouds by American artist Augustus B. Koopman (1869-1914). Koopman was born in Charlotte, North Carolina, initially studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine arts, and going on to live a large portion of his short life in Paris, studying at the Academie Julian and the Ecole des Beaux Arts, painting many of his marine and figure paintings on the coast at Etaples, near Belgium. Among his teachers were William Bouguereau, Benjamin Constant, and Tony Robert-Fleury. He was well known for his genre, maritime, landscape, figure, and portrait paintings. His drypoints and etchings can be found in both the Congressional and New York Public Libraries, and his painting “Vision of the Grand Canyon” is displayed in the Santa Fe Railway...

A fine impressionist beach scene by American artist Charles Herbert Woodbury (1864-1940). Woodbury was born in Lynn, MA, and sold his first painting when he was fifteen years old and...

A fine impressionist coastal painting with figures gathering at a dune party by well known American artist Charles Herbert Woodbury (1864-1940). Woodbury was born in Lynn, MA, and so...

Frederick Little Packer (American, 1886–1956) Bathers II Oil on board Signed and inscribed with title (on a label, on the reverse) 19 ¾ x 15 in. (50.2 x 38.3 cm) Radiant and rhythmic...

John Edward Costigan, N.A. American, 1888-1972 Bathers Oil on canvas Signed ‘J.E. Costigan N.A.’ lower left 20 by 24 in. W/frame 26 by 30 in. John Costigan was born of Irish-American parents in Providence, Rhode Island, February 29, 1888. He was a cousin of the noted American showman, George M. Cohan, whose parents brought the young Costigan to New York City and was instrumental in starting him on a career in the visual arts. They were less successful in encouraging him to pursue formal studies at the Art Students League (where, however, he later taught) than in exposing him to the commercial art world through the job they had gotten him with the New York lithographing firm that made their theatrical posters. At the H. C. Miner Lithographing Company, Costigan worked his way up from his entry job as a pressroom helper, through various apprenticeships, to the position of sketch artist. In the latter capacity he was an uncredited designer of posters for the Ziegfeld Follies and for numerous silent films. Meanwhile, he had supplemented his very meager formal studies in the fine arts with a self-teaching discipline that led to his first professional recognition in 1920 with the receipt of prizes for an oil painting and watercolor in separate New York exhibitions. A year earlier, Costigan had wed professional model Ida Blessin, with whom he established residence and began raising a family in the sleepy little rural New York hamlet of Orangeburg, the setting for the many idyllic farm landscapes and wood interiors with which he was to become identified in a career that would span half a century. John Costigan’s first national recognition came in 1922 with his winning of the coveted Peterson Purchase prize of the Art Institute of Chicago for an oil on canvas, “Sheep at the Brook.” It marked the start of an unbroken winning streak that would gain him at least one important prize per year for the remainder of the decade. The nation’s art journalists and critics began to take notice, making him the recurring subject of newspaper features and magazine articles. The eminent author and critic Edgar Holger Cahill was just a fledgling reporter when he wrote his first feature, “John Costigan Carries the Flame,” for Shadowland Magazine in 1922. Costigan had his first one-man show of paintings at the Rehn Gallery on New York’s 5th Avenue in November, 1924, to be followed less than three years later by another at the Art Institute of Chicago. In addition, Costigan’s work has been—and continues to be included, side-by-side with that of some of America’s most high-profile artists, in museum and gallery exhibitions throughout the country. His renown had peaked in the early 1930s, by which time his work had been honored with nearly every major award then being bestowed in the fine arts and had been acquired for the permanent collections of several prestigious American museums, including New York’s Metropolitan (which only recently, in 1997, deaccessioned his “Wood Interior,” acquired in 1934). Although Costigan’s celebrity had ebbed by the late 1930s, the Smithsonian Institution saw fit in 1937 to host an exhibition exclusively of his etchings. And, in 1941, the Corcoran Gallery (also Washington, D.C.) similarly honored him for his watercolors. (Another Washington institution, the Library of Congress, today includes 22 Costigan etchings and lithographs in its permanent print collection.) During World War II, Costigan returned briefly to illustrating, mainly for Bluebook, a men’s pulp adventure magazine. A gradual revival of interest in his more serious work began at the end of the war, culminating in 1968 with the mounting of a 50-year Costigan retrospective at the Paine Art Center and Arboretum in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Oils, watercolors and prints were borrowed from museums and private collections throughout the country, and the exhibition was subsequently toured nationally by the Smithsonian Institution. John Costigan died of pneumonia in Nyack, NY, August 5, 1972, just months after receiving his final prestigious award —the Benjamin West Clinedinst Medal of the Artist’s Fellowship, Inc., presented in general recognition of his “...achievement of exceptional artistic merit...” in the various media he had mastered in the course of his career. This painting depicts one of the artist's favorite themes --the farm family bathing...

Richard E. Miller 1875-1943 American Bathers Oil on canvas on board Emanating the radiant beauty that defines American Impressionism, Bathers captures Richard Edward Miller at his expressive best. Painted during a period shaped by his time among the celebrated Giverny Colony, the work blends atmospheric color, lyrical brushwork and an instinctive sensitivity to light. Its romantic tone and refined handling highlight Miller’s role as one of the most compelling American painters to absorb and evolve the lessons of French Impressionism. In this striking composition, Miller bathes his figures in a warm, glowing light that reveals their elegance and ease. Soft contours and textured strokes create a painterly surface that feels immediate and alive. The shimmering palette of the distant water recalls the brilliance of Monet’s Giverny...

Antique American impressionist coastal painting by Clarence Braley (1854 - 1927). Oil on canvas, circa 1900. Signed. Displayed in a period modernist ...