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Artist
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Title | Thumbnail |
Notes old |
Media |
Signature status |
| Gianni Cilfone |
The Gardeners |
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This Cilfone painting was featured in our weekly email on 6/13/14 along with the following gallery comments:
Gianni Cilfone was a Chicago/Park Ridge, IL-based artist who was a frequent visitor to Nashville, IN and exhibitor in the Hoosier Salon where he won four awards over a ten year period. In addition to his largely landscape output, he was a teacher and frequent lecturer on painting technique. There is an excellent article in Palette Talk, by Cilfone in which he discusses his technique in depth. This week’s Painting of the Moment, The Gardeners, is a fantastic example of his work. A classic scene, hands working in the field, rendered in representative Cilfone style – very loose and impressionistic. The painting is in flawless condition and has been re-presented in a period reproduction frame (original frame is available though kinda weird). Cilfone’s title and date (1978) appear verso and also on the backing from the original set-up (included with the piece). In addition, an original studio label listing awards and distinctions is included. We’ve had many nice Cilfone pieces over the years and though small, this ranks up there with the best of them. A wonderful composition and such classic subject matter all brought to bear with Cilfone’s masterful approach to painting.
– Curt Churchman, Fine Estate Art |
Oil on Board |
Signed Lower Left |
| Lois Davis |
Hurry Up To Wait |
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SOLD
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This Davis artwork was featured in our weekly email on 7/11/14 along with the following gallery comments:
Lois Davis is one of the few artists we deal in at Fine Estate who is still living! A good thing for her and us. She was married to fellow Hoosier artist and Prix de Rome winner Harry Davis and lived just up the road from Fine Estate in Broad Ripple. Her work is very consistent -- nearly always containing figures and representing a subtle (or not so subtle) social commentary. Hurry Up to Wait is no exception. Rendered in watercolor and ink it features a mother with her daughter doting on her doll. Sympathetic, as her work often is and beyond the focus, populated by several more background figures. A very nice, whimsical example of her output. The piece is archivally framed and ready to hang. A modestly priced and nicely representative example by an important Indiana artist.
– Curt Churchman, Fine Estate Art |
Mixed Media on Paper |
Signed Lower Left |
| John Elwood Bundy |
Richmond Autumn Landscape |
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This Bundy watercolor was featured in our weekly email on 7/18/14 along with the following gallery comments:
Bundy’s arrival in Richmond, IN in 1888 at age thirty-four signaled a change in his artistic direction. He’d previously focused on portraiture but arriving to lead art studies at Earlham College coincided with his transition to a landscape painter working in both the studio and plein air. He was considered the ‘dean’ of the Richmond School – the elder artist to many, many great painters who improbably worked in Richmond, Centerville and surrounding Eastern Indiana in the early twentieth century. Richmond Autumn Landscape (our title), an 1899 watercolor, is a nice example of Bundy’s work. Nineteenth century Bundy works are relatively rare. As was often the case, he’s given us a beautiful vista -- largely natural and devoid of the mark of man. A steady example from one of the great Indiana -- nay, great American painters...
– Curt Churchman, Fine Estate Art |
Watercolor on Paper |
Signed Lower Left |
| Glenn Cooper Henshaw |
Venice |
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This Henshaw pastel was featured in our weekly email on 7/31/14 along with the following gallery comments:
Glenn Cooper Henshaw is known mostly for his pastels, of which there are thousands – he was vastly prolific. Oils are less common but do exist in some number. Henshaw spent the bulk of his career in New York but he didn’t sit still – his settings range all over the western world – Paris, London, Venice, Chicago, Brown County, Boston, Baltimore, Indianapolis, etc. All the hot spots.
Venice is about as sexy as it gets. An ethereal pastel looking down an iconic Venetian waterway with the arched walkways and gondolas punctuating the scene moving the eye down the narrow corridor of the canal. Completely evocative of the shadowy, watery charm of Venice. A relatively large Henshaw piece and very desirable subject matter from an Indiana artist who traveled the globe for his subject matter.
– Curt Churchman, Fine Estate Art |
Pastel on Paper |
Signed Lower Right |
| Marie Goth |
Still Life with Roses |
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SOLD
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This Marie Goth painting was featured in our weekly email on 8/8/14 along with the following gallery comments:
After returning from New York where she studied under the renowned Frank DuMond at the Art Students League, Marie Goth was briefly back home in Indianapolis and in 1923 moved to Brown County where she spent the rest of her life. She was largely a portrait artist and painted many sitting Indiana governors in addition to the well-placed and well-to-do across the state and beyond. As a result of being a portraitist, there don’t exist many landscapes and still lifes -- which were typical output for almost every other Brown Country artist. Here on offer is one of those relatively scarce non-portraits, Still Life with Roses. A lovely, soft composition rendered in a loose and sympathetic style. The painting is clean and ready to hang. It’s housed in a vintage Brown County frame not original to the piece. In fact, this frame had been on an Ada Shulz we sold years ago (I don’t believe it was original to the Ada either). Beautiful painting and fun, period frame married together for your approval.
– Curt Churchman, Fine Estate Art |
Oil on Canvas |
Signed Lower Right |
| William Frederick Kaeser |
Fishin' |
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Oil on Board |
Signed Lower Right |
| George Herbert Baker |
Coastline |
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This work was featured in our 2nd Annual Curated Sale of Historic Indiana Art, April 8th, 2018 at the Indianapolis Art Center.
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Oil on Board |
Signed Lower Left |
| 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 |
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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 |
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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 |
