Rachel Hartley Figurative Paintings

A splendid impressionist southern scene with figures in a doorway, possibly Charleston, South Carolina by American artist Rachel V. Hartley (1884-1955). Hartley was born in New York City, daughter of sculptor Jonathon Scott Hartley and Helen Inness Hartley. Her grandfather was George Inness, one of America's greatest 19th century painters. She was raised in Montclair, New Jersey, and educated in private schools there. She entered the Art Students League in New York City as a special student. After her studies at the League were over, she worked in a studio next to her father's and devoted herself to portraits. Rachel Hartley often said that her "artistic career really began on a train bound for Tarpon Springs, Florida, with her grandparents," who maintained a vacation home there. Florida was to play an important role in the life of this suffragette artist throughout her long and prolific career. Hartley maintained residences in New York City and Southampton, Long Island. Typically, she spent summers partly in Southampton and partly in Provincetown, Gloucester, or elsewhere in New England. She also spent part of the year painting in Florida and other southern states, especially Virginia and the Carolinas. Her paintings have a light touch, both in terms of palette, but also in mood. Imbued with local color, these Southern genre scenes were once described as the “rural equivalent of an Ashcan school subject.” She is known for American impressionism and was friendly with Sargent, Whistler and Hassam. Oil on board, signed and dated 1935 lower right, and housed in a decorative giltwood sgraffito frame...