Gloucester Harbor--Late Afternoon

During the first half of the twentieth century, one of the most socially acceptable venues for women to express their creativity was through participation in the male-dominated world of the fine arts. Jane Peterson, a fixture on the American art scene, had an unwavering devotion to her sense of self as an artist. She subsequently developed an Impressionist-Fauvist style that is uniquely her own. Peterson's body of work encompasses scenes of gardens and beaches, colored umbrellas, and sun drenched port settings. Among the finest of her career, Gloucester Harbor exemplifies the artist's frequent depiction of natural beauty using brilliant colors and active brushwork.

Peterson's determination to be an artist began at a young age. When she was eighteen, she moved from Elgin, Illinois to New York and in 1896, she began her formal training at the Pratt Institute under the instruction of Arthur Wesley Dow. In 1901, Peterson studied with Frank DuMond at the Art Students League. Over the next decade Peterson held various teaching positions that brought her to Boston and Maryland. During this time she continued her studies at the Art Students League as well as with the leading European artists of the period such as Frank Brangwyn, Jacques-Emile Blance and Joaquin Sorolla y Bastida in Paris, Venice and Madrid. She also traveled extensively throughout North Africa visiting exotic locales such as Biskra, Algiers and Cairo.

Upon her return to the United States, Peterson continued her travels. After visiting the pacific Northwest with artist and friend Louis Comfort Tiffany, she frequented the various artist's colonies that dotted the Massachusetts coast line including Gloucester and Martha's Vineyard. Drawing inspiration from her travels both domestic and abroad, Peterson produced a diverse body of work that she exhibited at various institutions such as the Société des Artistes Francais, St. Botolph Club in Boston, the Art Institute of Chicago and in 1915 at the Panama Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco.

In Gloucester Harbor, Peterson employs grand brush strokes and an assertive line, creating a mosaic effect of highly expressive tones of blue, pink and yellow offset by pure whites. Peterson's style had become very definitive and has been described by Jonathan J. Joseph: "Her linear construction directed a viewer along a definite course and did not allow the viewer's attention to wander. Her tonal masses dominated lines and defined form, while subtle, thin oscillating lines emphasized form edges to better display the juxtapositioning of dark and light color areas. In some ways, Peterson's paintings resemble cloisonné, in that color is often surrounded by a thin outlining of charcoal or contrasting paint much like the thin wires of cloisonné surround enamel. However, lines do not encompass or totally contain color areas, but combine in a grand decorative order and show control in carefreeness. The work of Peterson becomes a sensuous place in the commonplace movements of nature." (Jane Peterson: An American Artist, Boston, Massachusetts, 1981, p. 17)

Large canvases such as Gloucester Harbor emphasize Peterson's bold and unique brushwork and present her skills at their best. The innovative stylistic elements found in Gloucester Harbor are the fundamental characteristics of Peterson's painting style that achieved critical acclaim. One reviewer in 1917 noted, "Miss Jane Peterson uses strong colors and broad brush to give the facts about docks and fishing craft and harbours in a somewhat knock-you-down fashion." (as quoted in Jane Peterson: An American Artist, p. 32)

Johnathan Joseph has confirmed the authenticity of this work.