Lot Essay
Executed at the height of his career, The Garden, exemplifies Frederick Carl Frieseke's goals of creating a perfectly balanced and pleasing composition. Frieseke's garden in Giverny, the setting for a number of his finest pictures, is depicted with dazzling color and vitality. The sunlight that shines through the trees provides an opportunity to show the play of light and shadow with consumate Impressionist technique. In this work Frieseke has chosen one of his favorite conventions: a female subject within the context of his garden. In his own words, he always chose to paint "sunshine, flowers in sunshine; girls in sunshine; the nude in sunshine." (M.M. Domit, Frederick Frieseke, Savannah, Georgia, 1974, p. 10) The stripes of the figure's dress provide yet another opportunity to add pattern to the composition. Dr. William H. Gerdts has noted that "it was Frieseke who introduced into the repertory of Giverny painting the concern for rich, decorative patterns, related to the art of Edouard Vuillard, Pierre Bonnard, and the other Nabi painters. There are patterns of furniture, patterns of parasols, patterns of fabric and wall coverings, patterns of light and shade, and patterns of flowers, all played off one another in bright sunshine...." (W.H. Gerdts, Monet's Giverny: An Impressionist Colony, New York, 1993, p. 172) All of Frieseke's artistic devices come together in this work to form a highly successful, complete, composed and balanced composition.
After painting The Garden, Frieseke exhibited the painting in 1915 at the Panama-Pacific Exposition. The aim of the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition was described in a promotional pamphlet of the time: "On February 20, 1915--on time and minutely ready--the Panama-Pacific International Exposition will be opened at San Francisco...It is the official, national and international celebration of a contemporaneous even--the opening of the Panama Canal...If the greatest physical achievement in history was to be celebrated by an Exposition, then the exposition should be the greatest in history." J.E.D. Trask, a member of the Department of Fine Arts that organized the exposition, described the lofty and educational goals of the exposition as follows: "Whether one follows Tolstoy or George Moor in regarding the arts of the painter and sculptor, whether one whispers the word 'culture' with baited breath and rolls 'art' upon the tongue or merely finds in association with the artist's work a highly moral and altogether harmless pleasure, whatever the point of view, it seems sure that at a certain place in the ascending scale of the graphic and plastic arts permanently enter, with no need for further excuse, the ordinary life of a civilized society. If this be true, a broad knowledge of the present state of these arts throughout the world is desirable and this present exhibition has made effort to supply." ("Introduction," Catalogue de Luxe of the Panama-Pacific Exposition, San Francisco, 1915 p. XVII)
It is with this high-minded aim that Frederick Frieseke, the American artist living in France, sent his finest works, including The Garden. Eugen Neuhaus, a contemporary critic, published a book reviewing almost every one of the several hundred galleries Panama-Pacific Exposition. His notes on Gallery 117 concentrated almost exclusively on the high quality Frieseke's work. He notes: "Here is Frederic Frieseke, our expatriate American with his fascinating boudoir scenes. Very high key and full of detail, at first they seem restless and crowded, which some actually are, in a degree. But canvases like The Garden and The Bay Window are the real jewels of light and color... Frieseke's clear, joyous art is typically modern, and expresses the best tendency of our day. Louis Mora's two watercolors, while illustrative, hold their own in Frieseke's company.... Very much in the style of Frieseke, Rittman's Early Morning in the Garden is easily taken for the art of his neighbor, but it should be recognized as the art of another kindred spirit."(A Critical Review of the Paintings, Statuary, and the Graphic Arts in the Palace of Fine Arts of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, pp. 84-85)
This painting will be included in the forthcoming catalogue raisonn of Frieske's work being compiled by Nicholas Kilmer, the artist's grandson.
After painting The Garden, Frieseke exhibited the painting in 1915 at the Panama-Pacific Exposition. The aim of the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition was described in a promotional pamphlet of the time: "On February 20, 1915--on time and minutely ready--the Panama-Pacific International Exposition will be opened at San Francisco...It is the official, national and international celebration of a contemporaneous even--the opening of the Panama Canal...If the greatest physical achievement in history was to be celebrated by an Exposition, then the exposition should be the greatest in history." J.E.D. Trask, a member of the Department of Fine Arts that organized the exposition, described the lofty and educational goals of the exposition as follows: "Whether one follows Tolstoy or George Moor in regarding the arts of the painter and sculptor, whether one whispers the word 'culture' with baited breath and rolls 'art' upon the tongue or merely finds in association with the artist's work a highly moral and altogether harmless pleasure, whatever the point of view, it seems sure that at a certain place in the ascending scale of the graphic and plastic arts permanently enter, with no need for further excuse, the ordinary life of a civilized society. If this be true, a broad knowledge of the present state of these arts throughout the world is desirable and this present exhibition has made effort to supply." ("Introduction," Catalogue de Luxe of the Panama-Pacific Exposition, San Francisco, 1915 p. XVII)
It is with this high-minded aim that Frederick Frieseke, the American artist living in France, sent his finest works, including The Garden. Eugen Neuhaus, a contemporary critic, published a book reviewing almost every one of the several hundred galleries Panama-Pacific Exposition. His notes on Gallery 117 concentrated almost exclusively on the high quality Frieseke's work. He notes: "Here is Frederic Frieseke, our expatriate American with his fascinating boudoir scenes. Very high key and full of detail, at first they seem restless and crowded, which some actually are, in a degree. But canvases like The Garden and The Bay Window are the real jewels of light and color... Frieseke's clear, joyous art is typically modern, and expresses the best tendency of our day. Louis Mora's two watercolors, while illustrative, hold their own in Frieseke's company.... Very much in the style of Frieseke, Rittman's Early Morning in the Garden is easily taken for the art of his neighbor, but it should be recognized as the art of another kindred spirit."(A Critical Review of the Paintings, Statuary, and the Graphic Arts in the Palace of Fine Arts of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, pp. 84-85)
This painting will be included in the forthcoming catalogue raisonn of Frieske's work being compiled by Nicholas Kilmer, the artist's grandson.