Hudson River School Landscape Prints

IN PRISTINE CONDITION. A color Chromolithograph published by the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad in 1912 after the original oil painting, “Gr...

The Jolly Flat Boat Men, 1847 After George Caleb Bingham (American, 1811-1879) Engraved by Thomas Doney (French, active New York 1844-1849) Engraving with Hand-Coloring Published by The American Art-Union, New York (1838-1851) Printed by Powell and Co. 18 x 24 inches 32 x 38 inches with frame In 1847, the American Art-Union purchased Bingham’s painting "The Jolly Flat Boat Men" (1846; National Gallery of Art) directly from the artist. The subscription-based organization, founded in 1838 as the Apollo Association, boasted nearly ten-thousand members at this date. For an annual fee of five dollars, each received a large reproductive engraving and was entered in a lottery to win original artworks exhibited at the Art-Union’s Free Gallery. Aimed at educating the public about contemporary American art, the organization developed an impressive distribution network that reached members in every state. The broad circulation of the Art-Union's print helped to establish Bingham's reputation and made his river scene famous. Born in Augusta County, Virginia in the Shenandoah River Valley, George Caleb Bingham became known for classically rendered western genre, especially Missouri and Mississippi River scenes of boatmen bringing cargo to the American West and politicians seeking to influence frontier life. One of his most famous river genre paintings was The Jolly Flatboatmen completed in several versions in 1846. This first version of this painting is in the Manoogian Collection at the National Gallery of Art. Fame resulted for this work when it was exhibited in New York at the American Art Union whose organizers made an engraving of 10,000 copies and distributed it to all of their members. Paintings such as Country Politician (1849) and County Election (1852) and Stump Speaking (1854) reflected Bingham's political interests. In 1819, as an eight-year old, he moved to Boon's Lick, Missouri with his parents and grandfather who had been farmers and inn keepers in the Shenandoah Valley near Rockingham, Virginia. Reportedly as a child there, he took every opportunity to escape supervision to travel the River and watch the marine activity. His father died in 1827, when his son was sixteen years old. His mother had encouraged his art talent, but art lessons were not easily obtainable. In order to earn money, he apprenticed to a cabinet maker but determined to become an artist. By 1835, he had a modest reputation as a frontier painter and successfully charged twenty dollars per portrait in St. Louis. "His portraits had become standard decorations in prosperous Missouri homes." (Samuels 46). In 1836, he moved to Natchez, Mississippi and there had the same kind of career, only was able to charge forty dollars per portrait. He remained largely self taught until 1837, when he, age 26 and using the proceeds from his portraiture, studied several months at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. He later said that he learned much of his atmospheric style and classically balanced composition by copying paintings in collections in St. Louis and Philadelphia and that among his most admired painters were Thomas Cole, John Vanderlyn, and William Sidney Mount. Between 1856 and 1859, Bingham traveled back and forth to Dusseldorf, Germany, where he studied the work of genre painters. Some critics think these influences were negative on his work because during that time period, he abandoned his luminist style that had brought him so much public affirmation. Bingham credited Chester Harding (1792-1866) as being the earliest and one of the most lasting influences on his work. Harding,a leading portraitists when Bingham was a young man, had a studio in Franklin, near Bingham's home town. In 1822, when Bingham was ten years old, he watched Harding finish a portrait of Daniel Boone. Bingham recalled that watching Harding with the Boone portrait was a lasting inspiration and that it was the first time he had ever seen a painting in progress. Harding suggested to Bingham that he begin doing portraiture by finding subjects in the river men, which, of course, opened the subject matter that established fame and financial success for Bingham. Harding also encouraged Bingham to copy with paint engravings. He later painted two portraits of Boone but, contrary to the assertions of some scholars, he did not do Boone portraits in the company of Harding. Bingham's portraits of Boone are not located, but one of them, a wood signboard for a hotel in Boonville circa 1828 to 1830, showed a likeness of Boone in buckskin dress...

“Trees and Fields” lithograph commissioned for the Print Club of Cleveland by Peter Takal Peter Takal’s original lithograph “Trees and Fields” is an accomplished work of art created in 1957. This lithograph bears the stamp “The Print Club of Cleveland” on verso. This impression is signed by Takal in pencil. “Trees and Fields” is a fine example of the art created by the 20th century Romanian / German / American artist, Peter Takal. Peter Takal: Born in Romania in 1905, Peter Takal spent most of his youth in Berlin and was mainly self-taught. His first one-man exhibition took place in the Gurlitt Gallery, Berlin, in 1932. During the following seven years his art was frequently exhibited at galleries in Berlin, Munich, Paris and as well as Casablanca and Algiers. At the beginning of the Second World War (1939), Peter Takal came to the United States for an exhibition of his art at the Katherine Kuhe Gallery, Chicago. He decided to remain in the United States and became an American citizen in 1944. Living in New York, Peter Takal quickly established himself as a leading printmaker and a modern master of both lithography and drypoint engraving. One-man exhibitions of his art took place in New York City (1942), Chicago (1939 & 1941), Washington (1959) and Los Angeles (1966). International exhibitions of his art were held at the Galeria de Arte Mexicano, Mexico City (1959), the Palazzo Strozzi, Florence, Italy (1960) and at the Kestner-Museum in Germany (1962). Museums to date that include Peter Takal's original prints in their collections are, the Chicago Art Institute, the Library of Congress, Washington, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the United States State Department, UCLA, the Berlin National Museum and the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris. Over the years, the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Arkansas Arts Center have acquired a very extensive collection of Peter Takal's lithographs and drypoints. The artist died in 1995. The Print Club of Cleveland: The Print Club of Cleveland is a non-profit adjunct organization and the country's first museum-affiliated print club devoted to the promotion of art and printmaking as a fine art for printmakers and collectors alike. With its creation in 1919, it has helped to support the growth of the department of prints and drawings at the Cleveland Museum of Fine Arts and has also been a source of great enrichment for collectors of fine prints. During the organizations long history, the club has annually commissioned one original etching engraving, lithograph, woodcut and or other form of original graphic art from such fine American artists as John Taylor Arms, Suzanne Anker, Luigi Lucioni, Will Barnet, Mark Tobey, Lyonel Feininger, Henry George Keller, Louis Lozowick, Karl Schrag, David Jansheski, Deborah Remington, and Peter Takal, as well as from leading international artists such as Henri Matisse, Edmund Blampied, Jean-Emile Laboureur, Salvador Dali, Michael di Cerbo, Phyliss Sloane, Paolo Boni, Juvenal Sanso...

This black and white etching by American painter and print maker of the Hudson River School in New York: Thomas Moran, is a rare Klackner #53 of the catalogue raisonné, depicting "The Harbor of Vera...