Courtyard at Dusk

Details

ROBERT SPENCER (1879-1931)
Courtyard at Dusk
signed 'Robert Spencer.' (lower right)
oil on canvas
30 x 36 in. (76.2 x 91.4 cm.)
Painted circa 1915.

Provenance

Mr. and Mrs. Ronald MacDougall, Los Angeles, California.
Gift to the present owner from the above, 1960.

Literature

B.H. Peterson, ed., Pennsylvania Impressionism, Bucks County, Pennsylvania, 2002, p. 329.

Exhibited

Washington, D.C., Corcoran Gallery of Art, Fifth Exhibition of Oil Paintings by Contemporary Artists, December 15, 1914-January 24, 1915, n.p., no. 196.
San Francisco, California, Panama-Pacific International Exposition, February 20-December 4, 1915.
St. Louis, Missouri, St. Louis City Art Museum, Exhibition of 20 Oil Paintings by Robert Spencer, February 1917.
Syracuse, New York, Syracuse Museum of Fine Arts, Exhibition of Paintings by Robert Spencer and Bertha Menzler Peyton, May 10-June 1, 1917.
(Possibly) Boston, Massachusetts, St. Botolph Club, 1917.
(Possibly) Worcester, Massachusetts, Worcester Art Museum, 1918.
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, 114th Annual Exhibition, February 9-March 30, 1919, p. 25, no. 83.
Nashville, Tennessee, Frist Center for the Visual Arts; New York, New-York Historical Society; Detroit, Michigan, Detroit Institute of Arts, Life's Pleasures: The Ashcan Artists' Brush with Leisure, 1895-1925, August 2, 2007-May 25, 2008, pp. 44, 69, 167, 195, no. 75, illustrated.
San Francisco, California, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, de Young Museum, Jewel City: Art from San Francisco's Panama-Pacific International Exposition, October 17, 2015-January 10, 2016, p. 193, fig. 67, illustrated.

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Lot Essay

According to Valerie Ann Leeds, Robert Spencer "left New York in 1903 and applied himself to genre scenes of the New Hope mill workers and landscapes of the Delaware Valley. He devoted a significant body of work to representing mill workers going about their daily routines, presenting them in an honest, unadorned manner. In his Courtyard at Dusk...women are gathered in a tenement courtyard after their workday is over, seeking the cool evening air and social contact within their close community. It is one of the few images by Spencer showing the workers at rest, as that life left little time for leisure." ("Pictorial Pleasures: Leisure Scenes and the Henri Circle," in Life's Pleasures: The Ashcan Artists' Brush with Leisure, exhibition catalogue, Detroit, Michigan, 2007, p. 44)

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