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Lot Essay
The lure of Claude Monet's Giverny enticed many American painters to flock to the small French village, creating one of the first American art colonies outside the borders of the United States. Artists like Frederick Carl Frieseke and Lawton Parker were drawn to the charms of the rural landscape. It was in this picturesque setting that Parker painted Orange Parasol, Giverny, a painting "destined to become famous." (R.H. Love, Louis Ritman: From Chicago to Giverny, Chicago, Illinois, 1989, p. 158) A wonderful American painting imbued with then revolutionary French elements of quick, loose brushstrokes, a vivid color palette and acute attention to light and shadow, Orange Parasol, Giverny is a tour de force of American Impressionism.
Parker joined the second generation of American painters in Giverny in 1903, and painted there for a decade. Working closely with friend and neighbor Frederick Frieseke, he began to paint the female figure in various garden settings; according to Dr. William H. Gerdts, it is possible that Parker explored the theme even earlier than Frieseke. Dr. Gerdts writes of Parker "he tackled plein air in earnest in his water gardens at Giverny he began studying the full outdoor light on things: how foliage and dresses and naked human flesh look against the light, down the light, across the light." (American Impressionism, New York, 1984, p. 270)
Parker likely painted Orange Parasol, Giverny around 1912, the same year as his well received solo exhibition at The Art Institute of Chicago. In the foreword to the exhibition, the writer noted that "the canvases exhibited by Mr. Parker present him in a new and interesting light for they show the departure of one hitherto known as a portrait painter into an impressionism of a rather new sort." He goes on to explain that while Monet's impressionism "was the illustration of a theory," Parker "has approached some of the more intimate aspects of nature" (as quoted in Louis Ritman: From Chicago to Giverny, p. 158) With its brilliant light, dense and lush landscape, intense color palette and wonderful subject matter, Orange Parasol, Giverny is a certainly among Parker's best and most beautiful works.
Parker joined the second generation of American painters in Giverny in 1903, and painted there for a decade. Working closely with friend and neighbor Frederick Frieseke, he began to paint the female figure in various garden settings; according to Dr. William H. Gerdts, it is possible that Parker explored the theme even earlier than Frieseke. Dr. Gerdts writes of Parker "he tackled plein air in earnest in his water gardens at Giverny he began studying the full outdoor light on things: how foliage and dresses and naked human flesh look against the light, down the light, across the light." (American Impressionism, New York, 1984, p. 270)
Parker likely painted Orange Parasol, Giverny around 1912, the same year as his well received solo exhibition at The Art Institute of Chicago. In the foreword to the exhibition, the writer noted that "the canvases exhibited by Mr. Parker present him in a new and interesting light for they show the departure of one hitherto known as a portrait painter into an impressionism of a rather new sort." He goes on to explain that while Monet's impressionism "was the illustration of a theory," Parker "has approached some of the more intimate aspects of nature" (as quoted in Louis Ritman: From Chicago to Giverny, p. 158) With its brilliant light, dense and lush landscape, intense color palette and wonderful subject matter, Orange Parasol, Giverny is a certainly among Parker's best and most beautiful works.