Description

For sale is a wonderful 1938 expressionist watercolor landscape painting of a forest by the highly regarded German American artist Herman Oliver Albright (1876 - 1944) Provenance: The Estate of Maine modernist artist Murray Hantman and his wife Jo Levy: Acquired directly from the artist. Albright was well-known in California for his depictions of the landscape as well as some of his ink renderings of the Oakland, San Francisco Bay Bridge as well as other California landmarks Here he depicts and almost expressive or abstract look at the interior of a wooded forest. The view isn't intimate glimpse into the shrubbery foliage and undulating tree limb entanglements of a forest view. The painting is done in an ink wash or watercolor The painting is signed on the bottom right corner. Note the missing pieces to the signature in our detailed pictures. The painting is also double signed in full on the reverse by the artist and inscribed with the address of: 737 Buena Vista Ave. San Francisco Dated 1938 Title "Trees" Condition: the painting with age appropriate paper toning. As noted a small piece missing to the bottom right corner. Pinholes to each corner as previously hung by tacks Measurements: 14 5/8" x 11 5/8" Herman Oliver Albright (1876 - 1944) Born Hermann Oliver Albrecht in Mannheim, Germany, in 1876, Herman Albright studied music and philosophy at Heidelberg University and traveled throughout Europe. Albright continued his travels upon his arrival in the United States around 1900, eventually settling in San Francisco in 1905. There he took a position at the Paul Elder Book Company, where he worked for the next 25 years. Originally doing photography as a hobby, by 1915 Albright was studying art and exhibiting in San Francisco, at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915, and at the San Francisco Art Association from 1916 through the 1930s. In 1917, he married his art teacher, painter Gertrude Partington, at which time he legally changed his name from Albrecht to Albright. Also known as H. Oliver Albright, Herman Albright was active in the San Francisco art community, and by the 1930s was able to devote full time to his art career. He exhibited often throughout the rest of his life, at San Francisco's California Palace of the Legion of Honor, the Commercial Club, Gump's Gallery, and the Beaux Arts Gallery, as well as at the California State Fair and the Springville Museum in Utah, winning many awards. During the 1930s, Albright made a series of lithographs and a series of Chinese ink wash drawings depicting the Oakland-San Francisco Bay Bridge during its construction, both of which were highly regarded and widely exhibited, including a show of the ink wash drawings at the San Francisco Museum of Art in 1937. Herman Albright passed away in San Francisco in 1944. Posthumous exhibitions of Albright's work include "The Art of H. Oliver Albright: An Appreciation" at the San Francisco Museum of Art in 1947, and a show at the Bertha Schaefer Gallery in New York in 1953