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Oil on canvas, 20 x 40 in.
Some
of the most technically talented easel artists were those who honed their
talents as illustrators where the demands of a
publisher and public forced them to render architecture, humans, and
landscape accurately and sometimes with a particular style. Lungren
worked as an illustrator in both New York City and later,
Cincinnati, Ohio, making images for major magazines such as
Scribner’s, Harper’s and Century. But, like many
illustrators, he aspired to paint “fine art.” He was introduced to
American Western subject matter, for which he later became known, by
Cincinnati artist friends. His first trip west came in 1892 when he
was hired by the Santa Fe Railroad to sketch scenes along its route
to California. In 1903 he moved to Los Angeles and in 1907 settled
in Santa Barbara. From there he made many burro and wagon trips
into California’s eastern deserts, depicting their stark sands and
buttes and vast spaces. Not much is know about Untitled –
neither the source landscape or the date. Lungren gives the flat
landscape dynamics by tilting the horizon, emphasizing the
variously-colored sedimentary zones on the bluffs, and creates a
sense of vastness with the extended sagebrush plains and the almost
cloudless sky
Provenance: Kennedy Galleries, NY; Peregrine Galleries, Santa
Barbara; Butterfield and Butterfield auction, LA February 15, 1989, no.
2275;
exhibitions and publications: exhibited, 75 Works 75 Years
Collecting the Art of California, Laguna Art Museum, Laguna Beach,
Ca. April 2 – July 11, 1993, and reproduced in the catalogue in color p.
23. |
