Sanford Gifford Oil Painting "Sketch of a Tree," 1867

Item Details

Sanford Robinson Gifford (American, 1823-1880)
Sketch of a Tree, 1867
Oil painting on paper mounted on canvas
Signed with artist’s monogram and dated to lower right
Gifford estate stamp marked to canvas verso

Literature
A Memorial catalogue of the paintings of Sanford Robinson Gifford, N. A. (Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1881), #447 (84).

Provenance
Gifford estate, 1881.
Previously purchased from Alex Acevedo of Alexander Gallery, New York.

An oil painting on canvas titled Sketch of a Tree by renowned Hudson River School artist Sanford Robinson Gifford (American, 1823 – 1880), created in 1867. With meticulous brushstrokes, this work carefully details a forest tree, and may have been a study for another painting, as Gifford was known for painting forests and landscapes in the Hudson River Valley and New England. It was not unusual for him and other Hudson River School artists to paint the same subject repeatedly, either from different perspectives, or preparatory works for larger or more complex paintings. This painting demonstrates Gifford’s mastery of light, a skill for which he was applauded, exhibiting breakthroughs of stark illumination and highlights throughout the tree trunk and leaves on the forest ground. The subject is likely located in the United States because it was the following year in 1868 that he went abroad for a second and last time to travel in Europe and the Middle East.

Sanford Robinson Gifford was a leading second-generation Hudson River School artist who was celebrated for his mastery of light and atmosphere. He is the only known Hudson River School artist to have been born and raised in the Hudson River Valley. He may have received early art instruction from Henry Ary, who was previously a neighbor of Thomas Cole, the father of the Hudson River School. Gifford studied at Brown University for two years but left before graduating in pursuit of becoming an artist. He moved to New York City where he studied with the English emigré John Rubens Smith, who trained him as a portrait and figural painter; however, Gifford soon thereafter pursued landscape painting. He exhibited his first painting in 1847 at the National Academy of Design, then submitted almost annually to the Academy. Gifford was elected an associate of the Academy in 1850, and a full Academician in 1854. His artistic maturity began to develop in the mid 1850s while traveling and studying in Europe. It was in Europe that he studied a copied J.M.W. Turner’s work in London’s National Gallery. He continued to travel extensively throughout Europe, then settled in Rome in 1856, where he painted his first major work Lake Nemi (Toledo Museum of Art), which was well-received at the Academy, and featured his signature radiant sunlight and filmy atmosphere for which he is most well-known. In the fall of 1857, Gifford moved back to New York City and rented a studio in the new Studio Building, where Frederic Church, Albert Bierstadt, and other landscape painters also rented. Although Gifford was known for his luminist style, it was in the 1860s that his work began to show a shift, exhibiting some sublime qualities, which may have been influenced by the fact that the artist was serving in the Civil War and lost his brother Edward in the War and his brother Charles who committed suicide. In 1867, one of his paintings, in addition to a painting by Winslow Homer, was chosen to represent American art at the Exposition Universelle in Paris. Like other Hudson River School artists, Gifford traveled and painted landscapes abroad in several countries including Egypt, Turkey, Greece, in addition to several countries throughout Europe. In 1880, the artist contracted a respiratory ailment while on a fishing excursion, which caused his untimely death at the age of fifty-six. A year after his death, the Metropolitan Museum of Art accorded Gifford their first monographic retrospective in their new building located in Central Park. His work has been exhibited and collected extensively by numerous institutions including the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the National Gallery of Art, the Wadsworth Atheneum, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, among many others.

Condition

- painting has been cut and mounted on canvas; painting has been restored; in painting scattered throughout.

Dimensions

- measurement of painting unframed; frame measures approximately 18.25" W x 26.5" H x 2.25" D.

Item #

ITMG344405