Hudson Mindell Kitchell Tonalist Oil Landscape on Canvas

Item Details

Hudson Mindell Kitchell (New York/New Jersey/Rhode Island; 1862 – 1944)
Untitled (landscape)
Oil on canvas
Signed “H M Kitchell” to lower left

An oil painting by listed American artist Hudson Mindell Kitchell (New York/New Jersey/Rhode Island; 1862 – 1944). This painting features a lightly wooded landscape under a moody, dramatic sky. It is rendered in the signature soft brushwork and rich palette of the tonalist painters. The work is signed to the lower left and is presented in a gilt wood frame.

Hudson Mindell Kitchell was Tonalist painter, born in 1862 in New Jersey. Little is known about his early life and education except that he married in 1880, and began his artistic career as a contract decorator and painter at E.C. Meekers Art Novelty Shop, an art factory in Newark. It was here that Kitchell became acquainted with renowned luminous painter Ralph Albert Blakelock (California/New York; 1847 – 1919). His ethereal landscapes and forest scenes were influenced by and continue to be compared to those of Blakelock, and in fact he was investigated for forgery of the latter’s work on several occasions during his lifetime, though he was never charged.

Kitchell exhibited with the Society of Independent Artist during the 1920s and his work can be found in the following museum collections: the Philbrook Art Museum, Tulsa, Oklahoma; Michigan University Museum of Art; the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington D.C.; and the Hibbing Library Collection, Hibbing, Minnesota.

Condition

- craquelure and accretion across painting. Minor inpainting along outer edges of image, near interior edges of frame. An abrasion with paint loss to lower left area.

Dimensions

- painting measures 24″ × 20.25″.

Item #

18CIN517-193