Olive Rush

"Washington Square" Olive Rush, American Impressionist New York Landscape

1913

Born in Russia, the son of Friede (1878 – 1956) and Benjamin Hoffman (1878 – a. 1942). Benjamin was a dealer in mineral and seltzer water and the family resided on Snediker Avenue in Brooklyn, New York, just down the streetfrom the home where George Gershwin (1898 – 1937) was born. This area of Brooklyn, known as Brownsville, “witnessed the development of one of the largest communities of Eastern European Jewish immigrants during the last decade of the 19th century and the first two decades of the 20 th century.” Today, little remains of this once thriving Jewish section of Brooklyn, which today houses many commercial and repair businesses. Hoffman studied at the Art Students League of New York, the National Academy of Design and in the art program at Cooper Union. His work at the National Academy received praise, and in 1921 he was awarded the 2nd prize and an honorable mention from the John Armstrong Chaloner Paris Prize Foundation at the National Academy, which allowed the recipient to study in Paris, France for as long as five years. The following year he was awarded the 1 st prize in the competition (with The Reform Advocate running the headline “Young Jew Wins Art Prize”) as well as the Suydam Bronze Medal for his achievements in the Academy’s Men’s Night Class. In 1923 he was residing in Long Branch, New Jersey, when he was awarded 4th place in the Chaloner competition. Early on, Hoffman exhibited his work throughout the city, including in 1925 with the recently organized Society of Independent Artists. He also received several solo exhibitions during the first part of his career, including one at Ferargil Galleries in 1929. In the spring of 1930 a solo exhibition of his portraits, including paintings and drawings, was held at at Babcock Galleries, where a reviewer noted: “Portraiture is obviously Mr. Hoffman’s specialty… his best work is characterized by a sensitive appreciation of character set down in a vigorous decisive statement. Later that same year, in August, he participated in Babcock’s summer exhibition where reviewer Jerome Klein, writing for The Baltimore Sun, felt Hoffman’s and other artists work was already becoming old fashioned, remarking “…if an effort toward accomplishment is to be made, it must be in the language of today. It is for that reason that such contemporaries as Eugene Higgins and Nathan Hoffman, in this show, seem artists of a bygone era…” The onset of the Great Depression appears to have slowed his success, as was the case for many up-and-coming artists. By 1939 Hoffman had become a gallerist in addition to being a painter, operating the collective exhibition space “Sutton Gallery,” which was originally located at 358 East 57th Street. There Hoffman exhibited his own works as well as those created by other prominent New York artists including David Burliuk (1882 – 1967), Charles C. Curran (1861 – 1942), Louis Eilshemius (1864 – 1941), Ann Goldthwaite (1869 – 1944), Maurice Kish (1895 – 1987), Lawrence Lebduska (1894 – 1966), Bradford Perin and Ellis Wilson...

Guy C. Wiggins Washington Square, circa 1920 Signed lower right Oil on canvas 24 x 34 inches Provenance: Chapellier Galleries, New York Acquired from the above by Thomas A. Campbell...

Ruth Anderson Municipal Building, Manhattan, circa 1918 Oil on canvas 25 x 19 inches Ruth A. Anderson was born in Carlisle, Pennsylvania in 1891 and die...

Mary Bradish Titcomb Village Green Signed lower left Oil on canvas 24 x 20 inches A native of Windham, New Hampshire, upon graduation from high school, Titcomb studied at the Massachusetts Normal Art School, before accepting a position as a drawing teacher in the public schools of Brockton, Massachusetts, where she remained for fourteen years before resigning, in 1889, to study painting at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Her instructors there included Edmund Charles Tarbell, Philip Leslie Hale, and Frank Weston Benson. In the 1890s she went to Paris to study with Jules Joseph Lefebvre and to travel. She then returned to Boston, taking studio space at the Harcourt Studios, where all three of her teachers kept space. In 1895 she became a member of the Copley Society and began exhibiting locally; from 1904 to 1927 she showed work in 29 exhibits at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. She began signing her name as "M. Bradish Titcomb" in 1905 to avoid prejudice against her gender. The same year saw her making a sketching trip to the artists' colony at Old Lyme, Connecticut, a center for the American Impressionists; this trip seems to have cemented her interest in the style. In 1915, Titcomb's Portrait of Geraldine J. – the mother of actress Jane Russell – was shown at the Corcoran Gallery of Art and purchased by President Woodrow Wilson; another portrait, of Frank P. Sibley, was reproduced in the Boston Globe. During this period her work was shown in a traveling exhibition with that of Cecilia Beaux, Lydia Field Emmet, Jean MacLane...

Very finely painted American impressionist painting of Washington Square Park in New York City by Robert Wesley Amick (1879 - 1969). Framed. Oil o...

Richard Hayley Lever (American, 1876–1958) Hyde Park Promenade at Apsley Gate, c. 1900–1905 Oil on canvas laid down on board Signed ‘Hayley LEVER’ (lower right) 6.75 x 9.625 in. (17....

A wonderful impressionist summer street scene of Washington Square Park in New York City. Waltsak has portrayed this piece in a most intimate, yet energetic way, and has packed so mu...

A stunning jewel and pertinent example of Berthelsen's charming New York City scenes. Here we find a The Plaza hotel and the Manhattan buildings depicted in the far background with pops of colors shinning through the lights and magic of the city. The artist was truly a master of capturing New York in all of its glory throughout the seasons. This piece is executed whimsically, yet dramatically evoking an emotion of wonder and beauty. This piece is signed lower right by the artist and it also bears the reproduction right's stamp on the reverse. It is titled on the back and it comes housed in a beautiful French giltwood frame with linen liner and hanging wire on verso ready to be displayed. Art measures 6.5 x 8 inches Frame measures 12 x 14 inches Johann Berthelsen was born in Copenhagen in 1883, the 7th of seven children, to Conrad and Dorothea Karen Berthelsen. His parents were involved in artistic and professional circles. In 1890, his mother brought the children to America, settling in Manistee, Michigan, with her sister's family. They would eventually move to Manitowoc, Wisconsin, a city on the shore of Lake Michigan. As a teenager, Johann was actively involved in choirs and singing groups. And he always loved to draw and paint, and while he was too impatient to take well to schoolwork, and never went beyond the 5th grade. Although he worked in several trades, Johann's mind and heart were always with the arts. As his voice matured, he also always wanted to be an actor, and at the age of 18 moved to Chicago where he reconnected with an old friend who was studying voice at the Chicago Musical...