SAL record control number: 130374 ;

Record level: Item ;

Record type: Movable work ;

Work title: Foothills [from archive website] ;

Alternate work titles:
2007: Foothills [from book]
1939: Into the foothills [from exhibition catalog]
1910: Foothills [from exhibition catalog] ;

Work date: ca.1909 [based on date of presentation of painting for acceptance] ;

Work creator: Søren Emile “Emil” Carlsen (1848-1932) [RA 1903-1932] ;

Work medium: Oil on canvas ;
Work dimensions: 30 x 35 inches ;

Inscribed / signed front: 
Location: At lower right.
Dated?: No.
Text: ‘Emil Carlsen.’. ;

Verso: unknown ;

SAL category: Oil ;
SAL sub-category: Landscape ;

Archives of American Art subjects:
Landscape
Landscape — Connecticut
Landscape — Mountain ;

Description of work:

Provenance:
1915 ( National Arts Club [1898- ], 15 Gramercy Park South, New York, NY 10003 ) ;
1912 Private collection of Emil Carlsen [1848-1932], the artist ;
1912 ( Vose Galleries [1841- ], 238 Newbury Street, Boston, MA 02116 ) ;
1910 Private collection of Emil Carlsen [1848-1932], the artist ;
1910 ( Bauer-Folsom Galleries [1908-1921] | Folsom Galleries [1908-1921], 396 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 11215 ) ;
ca.1909 Emil Carlsen [1848-1932], the artist .

Exhibition history:
1939 National Arts Club, New York, NY #9 displayed as (In the foothills)
1929 National Arts Club, 15 Gramercy Park South, New York, NY
1934 National Arts Club, 15 Gramercy Park South, New York, NY
1926 National Society of Artists, New York, NY
1923 National Arts Club, New York, NY
1915 National Arts Club, New York, NY, “Diploma Presentation” – wins Silver Medal
1912 Vose Gallery, Boston, MA, “The Latest Work of Emil Carlsen, N.A.”, April 8-20.
1910 Buffalo Fine Arts Academy, Albright Art Gallery, “A Collection of Paintings and Sketches by Emil Carlsen”, March 18 – April 13.

References / citations:
– “A Legacy of Art: Paintings and Sculptures by Artist Life Members of the National Arts Club” by Carol Lowrey, Hudson Hills, 2007.
– Vose Gallery, Boston, MA, Exhibition Catalog, “The Latest Work of Emil Carlsen, N.A.”, April 8-20, 1912, #3, not illustrated.
– “1912 Exhibition of Paintings List” provided by Vose Gallery, Boston, MA, April 8-20, 1912.
– Academy Notes 5, National Academy of Design, New York, NY, “Exhibitions of Works by Emil Carlsen, Childe Hassam, and Frederick Ballard Williams”, April 1910, pages 22, 23, illustrated: b&w.
– Buffalo Fine Arts Academy, Albright Art Gallery, Exhibition Catalog, “A Collection of Paintings and Sketches by Emil Carlsen”, March 18 – April 13, #14, not illustrated. ;

Notes:
“A Legacy of Art: Paintings and Sculptures by Artist Life Members of the National Arts Club” by Carol Lowrey, Hudson Hills, 2007
…”Foothills is typical of Carlsen’s mature landscape aesthetic, in which he conjoined the light and coloristic concerns of Impressionism with a subjective approach—what John Steele described as ‘the moods these nature objects inspire in his soul.’ His style, like that of a number of contemporaries working in diverse geographic regions of the United States, such as Daniel Garber in rural Pennsylvania and Carl Krafft in south central Missouri, actually represents a later phase of Impressionism, when artists began abstracting’ naturalistic form and color into an almost musical repetition of rhythms and impulses.’

Carlsen’s move towards a decorative manner of painting may have been influenced by the example of Weir, who employed a similar approach in works such as In the Sun (1899: Brigham Young University, Provost, Utah). In Foothills, this tendency is revealed in the artist’s use of a reductive composition featuring a limited palette of closely related hues and subdued luminosity. The heavily encrusted paint surface, along with the simplified, two-dimensional forms, help create a tapestry-like effect, while the evenly toned pastel colors contribute to the mood of quiet harmony that pervades the image.

Featured in his solo exhibition at the Albright Art Gallery in Buffalo in 1910, Foothills was singled out by one reviewer as being among the “the finest things that Mr. Carlsen has done.” The comment rings true, for the painting illustrates the artist’s mature style, aptly summed up by the painter Eliot Candee Clark, who stated:

[Carlsen] takes objects out of their purely objective environment and reconstructs their aspect in accordance with his aesthetic idea…He is not responsive to the dramatic manifestations of nature, and does not express the emotional quickening in nature’s theatre. He adapts nature in his own use, and his use is largely decorative.’”…

– Academy Notes 5, National Academy of Design, New York, NY, “Exhibitions of Works by Emil Carlsen, Childe Hassam, and Frederick Ballard Williams”, April 1910, pages 22, 23, illustrated: b&w.
…”They are not as large as the other picture but Foothills is another most important study of clouds and distant hills. This seems to have been painted from a high place, and the eye of the visitor traverses the tops of some tall trees to the clouds beyond.”… ;

Document information

Document permalink:
http://salmagundi.org/artwork/?p=130374

Digital-born document number:
SAL.2022.130374

Record birth date:
July 15, 2022

Last updated: January 26, 2024 at 12:45 pm