.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
At the turn of the century a progressive group of artists known as The Eight portrayed in their paintings with great clarity and brazenness the realities of urban life in New York. Spearheaded by Robert Henri, The Eight was comprised of Everett Shinn, John Sloan, George Luks, Maurice Prendergast, William Glackens, Arthur Davies and Ernest Lawson. Of The Eight, Ernest Lawson was considered a landscape painter whose techniques allied him more closely with the Impressionists, though he found beauty in the rapidly growing urban environment of New York. Lawson was particularly enamoured of the diverse landscape located in the remote northern regions of Manhattan, including the Harlem River, Washington Heights, Morningside Heights and Inwood. Lawson's artistic exploration of these remote areas of Manhattan represents an important body of work in American art. The Pigeon Coop from circa 1916, portraying a cluster of shacks and sheds located in upper reaches of Manhattan along the Harlem River, illustrates Lawson's fascination with man-made structures and their relationship to the surrounding natural environment combined with his innovated Impressionistic techniques.
The Pigeon Coop immediately captured the attention of numerous well known art critics including Guy Pene Du Bois, Duncan Philips and Frederic Fairchild Sherman. Duncan Philips, an important patron of Lawson's works recognized the superior qualities of The Pigeon Coop. In 1917 he recounted with great admiration the elements that he most admired about the work: "At a glance we decide the background may be beautiful, but that the foreground is forlorn. Some twenty feet immediately below the artist's standpoint two squat one-story cabins make a diagonal pattern across the center of the canvas. We look down upon the roofs where the morning light is dancing. From a crude chimney, smoke curls up into the sunshine. On the farther roof is the pigeon coop. The birds are out taking the air, soaring and dipping, and fluttering about, making no doubt, a delightful whir with their wings. Beyond the cabins gleams the river and across the river, the hills of the opposite shore, a dream of rose and gray under the morning's gold. The sun is romancing through the sky, and the young earth is in love with it. A lazy luxury of spring permeates the senses. The foreground is no longer ugly, for we seem to have fallen under some enchantment. The colors fuse and vibrate together until our hearts are warm with the memories of May." ("Ernest Lawson", The American Magazine, vol. 8, May 1917, p. 259)
Frederic Sherman in his article entitled The Landscape of Ernest Lawson published three years later similarly describes with reverence the artist's innovations: "Twachtman was more of a poet, but Lawson too is a poet at times--certainly The Pigeon Coop is truly a poem. For this ballad of a winter's day he employs the rhythm of a flight of white pigeons above a group of sordid sheds in the outskirts of New York, fronting on the Harlem River, the heights of Fort George beyond." (Art in American, Vol. 8, December 1920, p. 34) Lawson's The Pigeon Coop poignantly documents the changing landscape of this corner of New York, revealing a contrast between rural country side and the encroaching development of communities in these distant areas of Manhattan.
Underscoring the visual impact of The Pigeon Coop is Lawson's unique handling of pigment, color and light that have become hallmarks of his finest works. Henry and Sidney Berry-Hill observed: "Lawson's concern was with color and texture, not with 'isms.' His layer upon layer of glistening oil paint does not disguise any precise compositional devices; he painted landscape for landscape's sake, as though every canvas was a spontaneous study of color-in-landscape and texture-in-landscape. His color, moulded into a rich mass on his palette, is vivid, applied with knife, brush and even thumb. It was as though he was virtually sculpting his painting with color on color, over and over again. His method of scraping and manipulating his paint is personal, adapted to accord with his theme. Some summer surfaces actually sing with color and glow with luminous iridescence, comparable with that of brilliant enamel." (Ernest Lawson, American Impressionist, Leigh-on-sea, England, 1968, p. 31) Incorporating suffused light with jewel-like blues, greens, lavenders and whites coupled with a deliberate and heavy handed application of paint, Lawson in The Pigeon Coop creates an atmosphere that is at once tranquil and agitated. His canvas poignantly reflects the rapid transformation of a landscape at the crossroads of urban development.
The Pigeon Coop in its style and subject matter succinctly illustrates the diametric traits that make Lawson one to the most revered members of The Eight. The present work documents the encroachment of modern life on the undeveloped countryside, yet harmoniously melds the opposing worlds through the veiling effects of light, color and application of pigment.
The Pigeon Coop immediately captured the attention of numerous well known art critics including Guy Pene Du Bois, Duncan Philips and Frederic Fairchild Sherman. Duncan Philips, an important patron of Lawson's works recognized the superior qualities of The Pigeon Coop. In 1917 he recounted with great admiration the elements that he most admired about the work: "At a glance we decide the background may be beautiful, but that the foreground is forlorn. Some twenty feet immediately below the artist's standpoint two squat one-story cabins make a diagonal pattern across the center of the canvas. We look down upon the roofs where the morning light is dancing. From a crude chimney, smoke curls up into the sunshine. On the farther roof is the pigeon coop. The birds are out taking the air, soaring and dipping, and fluttering about, making no doubt, a delightful whir with their wings. Beyond the cabins gleams the river and across the river, the hills of the opposite shore, a dream of rose and gray under the morning's gold. The sun is romancing through the sky, and the young earth is in love with it. A lazy luxury of spring permeates the senses. The foreground is no longer ugly, for we seem to have fallen under some enchantment. The colors fuse and vibrate together until our hearts are warm with the memories of May." ("Ernest Lawson", The American Magazine, vol. 8, May 1917, p. 259)
Frederic Sherman in his article entitled The Landscape of Ernest Lawson published three years later similarly describes with reverence the artist's innovations: "Twachtman was more of a poet, but Lawson too is a poet at times--certainly The Pigeon Coop is truly a poem. For this ballad of a winter's day he employs the rhythm of a flight of white pigeons above a group of sordid sheds in the outskirts of New York, fronting on the Harlem River, the heights of Fort George beyond." (Art in American, Vol. 8, December 1920, p. 34) Lawson's The Pigeon Coop poignantly documents the changing landscape of this corner of New York, revealing a contrast between rural country side and the encroaching development of communities in these distant areas of Manhattan.
Underscoring the visual impact of The Pigeon Coop is Lawson's unique handling of pigment, color and light that have become hallmarks of his finest works. Henry and Sidney Berry-Hill observed: "Lawson's concern was with color and texture, not with 'isms.' His layer upon layer of glistening oil paint does not disguise any precise compositional devices; he painted landscape for landscape's sake, as though every canvas was a spontaneous study of color-in-landscape and texture-in-landscape. His color, moulded into a rich mass on his palette, is vivid, applied with knife, brush and even thumb. It was as though he was virtually sculpting his painting with color on color, over and over again. His method of scraping and manipulating his paint is personal, adapted to accord with his theme. Some summer surfaces actually sing with color and glow with luminous iridescence, comparable with that of brilliant enamel." (Ernest Lawson, American Impressionist, Leigh-on-sea, England, 1968, p. 31) Incorporating suffused light with jewel-like blues, greens, lavenders and whites coupled with a deliberate and heavy handed application of paint, Lawson in The Pigeon Coop creates an atmosphere that is at once tranquil and agitated. His canvas poignantly reflects the rapid transformation of a landscape at the crossroads of urban development.
The Pigeon Coop in its style and subject matter succinctly illustrates the diametric traits that make Lawson one to the most revered members of The Eight. The present work documents the encroachment of modern life on the undeveloped countryside, yet harmoniously melds the opposing worlds through the veiling effects of light, color and application of pigment.