Description

For an artist who painted primarily in the 19th century in the impressionist style, this is a strikingly modern and simplistic image of a lone tree struggling against the wind. For that reason we think it was most likely completed in the second decade of the 20th century. We like what the painting symbolizes, maybe strength? endurance? We think it would be nice hung by your bed or your vanity to remind you to hang in there when the going gets tough.

Details

• Frank C. Penfold (American, 1849 - 1921)
• Untitled landscape
• Watercolor and gouache on paper
  
• Unsigned
  
• 18" x 20" (overall) 8 3/4" x 11" (sight)
• Framed under glass
  
• High quality gilt wood frame with some losses. Presents very well.

About the Artist

Frank Crawford Penfold was an American artist and teacher, known for his impressionistic genre, landscape, and portrait paintings, many of which depict scenes from the countryside of his adopted home in Pont-Aven, Brittany. He was born in Lockport, New York, in 1849 to a family of artists. Although his father, also an artist, wanted him to become an engraver, his talent as a painter was undeniable. He first exhibited his work in April 1875 and later that year was featured in a group show at the Mutter & Hoddick Art Gallery in Buffalo. Around 1877, Penfold traveled to France, settling in Pont-Aven, where he taught in the local artist colony. He also studied at the Académie Julien in Paris in 1884 and exhibited in group shows, most notably at the Paris Salon in 1882, 1883, and 1885.  His painting Death of the First Born or La Mort du nouveau-né, was only the second work by an American to be purchased by the French state.  

Penfold occasionally traveled back to Buffalo, where he remained connected to the local art community. He taught class at the Buffalo Fine Arts Academy in 1891 and was a member of the Buffalo Society of Artists, serving as its president in 1896. He also exhibited at the Pan-American Exposition in 1901 as well as at the St. Louis World’s Fair in 1904. In 1921, distraught over the death of his wife, Jennifer Wells, he drowned himself in Concarneau, Brittany. The prestigious Albright-Knox Gallery, which had hosted one man shows of his paintings in 1907 and 1915, honored him with a retrospective of his work in 1922. Among other private and institutional collections, his work is held by the Burchfield Penney Art Center at SUNY Buffalo, NY.