|
Artist
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Title | Thumbnail |
Notes old |
Media |
Signature status |
| Dale (Philip) Bessire |
Clouded Hills |
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This Bessire painting was featured in our weekly email on 2/21/14 along with the following gallery comments:
Dale Bessire was a ‘second generation’ Nashville artist most known for executing gentle landscapes featuring local Brown County hills and vistas. He’s out of that paradigm with this pleasant example of what we believe is the Smoky Mountains. This wonderful, bright palette and a breezy rendering reflects Bessire’s skills. Great companion piece to another Bessire or a painting which stands nicely on its own.
– Curt Churchman, Fine Estate Art |
Oil on Board |
Signed Lower Left |
| Evalyn Gertrude James |
Silver and Gold |
 |
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This Evalyn James painting was featured in our weekly email on 2/28/13 along with the following gallery comments:
Evalyn Gertrude James hails from Brazil, IN – my dear mother’s hometown. And by all anecdotal accounts was slightly eccentric. Several site visitors over the years have relayed similar stories, this from a visitor in 2008:
"I grew up in Brazil, Indiana and my sister and I took art lessons from Ms. James at the old Davis hotel in the 1950's. It was my mother who also was a artist who wanted me to take lessons from Ms. James. My mom also took lessons and painted many pictures based upon Ms. James teaching . My mom wanted me to become an artist. I wasn't very good, not much interested, and didn't take lessons much more than a year or so.
"Ms. James studio in the Davis Hotel was in the hotel ballroom. I remember lots of paintings all around the room on the floor leaned up against the walls. My parents had a very large picture, about 4 foot by 3 foot by Ms. James that hung over our couch in our living room in Brazil for more than thirty years.
"Ms. James was a somewhat of a hermit like person who lived in a very rustic cabin on the west side of town in the woods. You would see her walking home carrying her stuff along the road all the time."
And from another visitor in 2009: "Ms. James lived down the road from us. She was for lack of a better word, 'odd.' "
So she was crazy – I seem drawn to crazy. She always represented her degrees on studio labels. ‘Evalyn Gertrude James, A.B. A.M.’. Lest we should forget.
Here we have a nice example of her work dating to 1943. Visceral, full of impasto and bright colors. Silver and Gold represents James at her best. Crazy. Obviously crazy.
– Curt Churchman, Fine Estate Art |
Oil on Board |
Signed Lower Right |
| George Herbert Baker |
Richmond Bridge |
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|
Watercolor on Paper |
Signed Lower Right |
| George Herbert Baker |
Winter Stream |
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This Baker painting was featured in our weekly email on 3/21/14 along with the following gallery comments:
A few nice Baker’s have made their way to us recently. This piece, Winter Stream is classic Baker subject matter. To wit, winter and local Richmond streams. Rendered with his typical flare for coloration and loving treatment of the native landscape. The painting has been cleaned and is in flawless condition. It’s housed in a hand-leafed period reproduction frame. A note on said frame, these are created by Fine Estate from scratch and gilded locally and then custom finished (e.g. shellac, etc.) to be sympathetic to the painting. Frames make paintings – if we can help you with framing your artwork, please let us know.
– Curt Churchman, Fine Estate Art |
Oil on Board |
Signed Lower Left |
| Arnold Turtle |
San Francisco - Oakland Bay |
 |
SOLD
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This Arnold Turtle painting was featured in our weekly email on 3/14/14 along with the following gallery comments:
Arnold Turtle was so spontaneous and loose, I adore his work. And the more his career advanced, the more abstract he became. Despite that, his pieces consistantly read ‘right’ to me. Well-composed, the perspective intact and recognizable -- yet always wild and free. San Francisco -- Oakland Bay ties with Turtle’s interest in harbors, marinas and coastal scenes which took him to waterfronts all around the country for his subjects. This piece is very fresh to market, coming to us from the family of the original purchaser. It’s been cleaned, is in flawless condition and is housed in the original frame.
– Curt Churchman, Fine Estate Art |
Oil on Canvas |
Signed Lower Right |
| Harry A. Davis |
End of an Era #2 |
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|
Watercoler and Ink on Paper |
Signed Lower Right |
| Gustave Baumann |
The Landmark |
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No 77 of 100
This Baumann woodblock was featured in our weekly email on 4/3/14 along with the following gallery comments:
Gustave Baumann’s The Landmark is one of the seminal woodblock prints from his Indiana period. Created c. 1916, the subject is Brown County and the colorful execution is classic Baumann. The use of India ink for his numbering scheme was his early (pre-Sante Fe) style of marking prints. He changed to pencil for noting edition numbers a few years later. Beyond Grandma Battin’s Garden, The Landmark is probably the most popular of Baumann’s Indiana subject matter. The piece has gone through conservation and the ‘oatmeal’ paper that he employed on his Indiana prints is wonderfully bright and without flaws. It’s housed behind museum glass in an exquisitely crafted (and technically challenging) Baumann reproduction frame which is a dead ringer for the frames Baumann himself created for his pieces. A very nice example from America’s woodblock master, in perfect condition and beautifully presented. Arts and Crafts gushing out all over the place.
– Curt Churchman, Fine Estate Art |
Color Woodcut on Paper |
Signed Lower Right |
| Edward R. Sitzman |
A Walk in the Woods |
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|
Pastel on Paper |
Signed Lower Right |
| Georges LaChance |
May Stream |
 |
SOLD
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This LaChance painting was featured in our weekly email on 4/11/14 along with the following gallery comments:
Georges LaChance (Jack to his friends and drinking buddies) hailed from New York and moved to Brown County permanently in the early 1930s. A Hoosier Salon exhibitor from the 1926 inaugural show through 1961 (and missing an entry only a couple times over that amazing run) he was a prolific painter with a very established, loose hand. Very free and colorful -- in many ways his work exemplifies ‘Midwestern Impressionism’ of the era. And May Stream is a great example of his style and subject matter. Wild and with a bright palette, the scene being one of the local streams -- Salt Creek or maybe Lick Creek. Typical Brown County and typical May look -- by June, that water is generally gone! The painting has gone through conservation and has just a minor amount of in-painting. The original frame arrived a hot mess and has been completely restored and re-gilded in gold metal leaf. The painting and the frame marry together wonderfully.
– Curt Churchman, Fine Estate Art |
Oil on Canvas |
Signed Lower Left |
| C. Curry Bohm |
Bright Winter's Day |
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This Coats painting was featured in our weekly email on 4/25/14 along with the following gallery comments:
Claude Curry Bohm began making painting trips to Nashville in the late 1910s and moved there permanently in 1932. He’s always been considered one of Brown County’s mainstays and was very prolific. In addition to pastoral landscapes and some village scenes, he travelled to Gloucester, MA annually and produced many harbor scenes and landscapes from those excursions. Bright Winter's Day, (c. 1966) is representative of his Brown County landscapes. A very loose rendering, it features a local cabin and outbuilding with a frozen stream carved into the countryside. The painting, an exhibition size oil, was housed behind glass for almost all of its life and thus, is in perfect condition having never been exposed to the elements. Glass over oil paintings is a somewhat strange set-up but it does keep the canvas clean. We’ve removed the glass and reinstalled the painting in the original frame. A rare opportunity to own a very large winter oil by one of Brown County’s most sought after historic artists.
– Curt Churchman, Fine Estate Art |
Oil on Canvas |
Signed Lower Left |
| Edward R. Sitzman |
Interior Woods |
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This Sitzman painting was featured in our weekly email on 5/22/14 along with the following gallery comments:
Edward Sitzman was originally from Cincinnati and studied under the legendary Frank Duveneck and later went to Munich for training. He moved to Indianapolis in 1897. Sitzman’s oils, particularly the early ones were very painterly and often represented that Indiana-standard, interior woods scenes. He seemed to go ‘commercial’ at some point and produced many studio watercolors featuring idealized landscapes. These were not done from life (typically) and are not well-collected. However his oil output is fairly well-regarded and is generally of a higher standard. Interior Woods is a classic example. A very colorful, vibrant oil, working with sunlight and shadows in natural woods setting. A classic Indiana landscape.
– Curt Churchman, Fine Estate Art |
Oil on Canvas |
Signed Lower Left |
| Homer Gordon Davisson |
Walk Your Horses |
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This Davisson painting was featured in our weekly email on 5/2/14 along with the following gallery comments:
Homer Davisson attended Depauw and ultimately settled in the Fort Wayne area where he taught and painted countless works reflecting the Mississinawa Valley and surrounding countryside. He frequented Brown County and created a large body of work reflecting those storied painting grounds in addition to some early European paintings (generally watercolors). He was a near-constant exhibitor in the Hoosier Salon from 1925 to 1957, the year of his death. Walk Your Horses is a fun, breezy example of his output. The title is ours -- the painting is untitled, verso. If you look at the loosely rendered admonition on the bridge, how could the title be anything else? The painting has been cleaned, re-varnished and is in excellent condition. It’s housed in a simple, gold period reproduction frame. A nice, affordable example from this early Hoosier artist.
– Curt Churchman, Fine Estate Art |
Oil on Board |
Signed Lower Left |
| Homer Gordon Davisson |
Lane Along the Mississinewa |
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|
Oil on Board |
Signed Lower Right |
| Adam Emory Albright |
Little Sister |
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This watercolor was featured in our weekly email on 9/19/14 along with the following gallery comments:
Adam Emory Albright resided in Warrenville, IL (about 30 miles west of the Chicago loop, now very much in the Western Suburbs) and frequently painted in Brown County. It was a natural setting for his work which was extremely sympathetic and generally featured ragamuffin children partaking in timeless activities – fishing, playing in the stream, marching through the field, on the shore, etc. Models often included his own boys – one of whom, Ivan became a leading Chicago artist of his generation. Albright worked mostly in oil, his pieces are very impressionistic and have a wonderfully airy effect. Little Sister comes to us as an outlier -- likely a study of an oil of the same title. The piece is unsigned, with annotation, verso indicating the title and the Albright attribution. I have no issue with authenticity – it’s right out of the Albright playbook. Little Sister has gone through paper conservation and is totally pristine. The work is housed in the cutest original frame ever… A very fun and somewhat rare Albright study set in a marvelous package.
-Curt Churchman |
Watercolor on Paper |
Attribution, verso |
| John (Jan) Zwara |
White River Summer Landscape |
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|
Oil on Board |
Signed Lower Left |
| C. Curry Bohm |
Creakside Cabin |
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|
Oil on Board |
Signed Lower Right |
| Gustave Baumann |
Courthouse Yard |
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Edition 100
This Baumann woodcut was featured in our weekly email on 11/07/13 along with the following gallery comments:
Gustave Bauman’s Courthouse Yard was among twelve pieces produced in 1910 that were sold individually and grouped together in what was known as ‘The Portfolio’. The collection, among the earliest works that he produced while in Nashville, IN, depicts life of the day in Brown County. Among the other titles were The Old Print Shop, the Rug Maker, Mathis Alley, etc. Entire portfolios (intact and together) are rare these days but individual prints do come to market. Courthouse Yard features the iconic Nashville Courthouse and reflects Baumann’s love for the simplicity of small town life. These earlier works trade for less than his later Brown County period pieces (1915-16) and would make a great addition to any Indiana art collection and also offers a relatively inexpensive way to own artwork by America’s woodblock master – Gustave Baumann.
–Curt Churchman, Fine Estate Art |
Color Woodcut on Japan Paper |
Signed Lower Right |
| Carolyn G. Bradley |
Gloucester |
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|
Watercolor on Paper |
Signed Lower Left |
| John (Jan) Zwara |
White River Meridian Street Bridge |
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This Zwara Gouache was featured in our weekly email on 11/21/13 along with the following gallery comments:
If you follow us at all, you know we love Jan Zwara. He was vastly prolific, literally painting to live. And It’s always fun having random Zwaras, ne’er before seen, find their way to my inbox. This piece from 1934, is local Indy and features the White River bridge at Meridian St. (around 6400 N. Meridian). The bridge was constructed in 1933 and thus would have been brand new when Zwara sat down to paint it. The bridge was recently (and substantially) rebuilt and expanded in a multi-year project. The piece is a classic Zwara gouache – the White River, a bridge, reflections on the water, tonalist background. All to good effect and the bonus of semi-prominent Indianapolis subject matter.
–Curt Churchman, Fine Estate Art |
Gouache on Paper |
Signed Lower Right |
| William McKendree Snyder |
Michigan Summer Landscape with Sheep |
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This Snyder watercolor was featured in our weekly email on 12/12/13 along with the following gallery comments:
William McKendree Snyder is indelibly associated with Madison, Indiana where he spent most of his life painting realistic and detailed landscapes of the local beech forests. Think Hudson River school. He did travel and one of his destinations was Michigan where it is believed Michigan Summer Landscape with Sheep was painted. An interesting departure for Snyder in terms of media and technique -- the painting was probably done as a study. Nicely presented in an antique reproduction frame, glare free light and all conservation matting and backing (photos available).
–Curt Churchman, Fine Estate Art |
Watercolor on Paper |
Signed Lower Right |
