"Stream in Autumn, near Bethesda MD."

Oil on board, signed lower left and titled on the reverse

Painting: 12" x 16"
Frame: 17" x 20.75"

SAFA/10945 Provenance: The Estate of a Toms River Collector

Benson Bond Moore, painter, etcher and teacher was born in Washington, DC. He studied at the Corcoran School of Art with Messer and Brooke , and also with Weyl . He continued his studies in drawing at the Linthicum Institute under Ballenger and learned painting conservation from his father.

Active in professional societies, he was a member and officer of the Landscape Club of Washington. He was also a longtime member of the Society of Washington Artists. He exhibited with both groups from as early as 1915 and continued through the 1930's. His work was also shown at the Corcoran Gallery of Art.

As an artist, he became well known and honored for his local scenes, many of which are in major public collections. His works are held by the National Museum of American Art; Historical Society of Washington, DC; Library of Congress; The White House; Bibliothèque National de Paris; Cosmos Club; National Museum of American History; the Houston Museum of Fine Art and the Los Angeles Museum of Art. Over his life, he was honored with numerous awards for his work.

Sources:
McMahan, Virgil. "The Artists of Washington, D.C. 1796-1996"
Consentino, Andrew and Glassie, Henry. "The Capital Image, Painters in Washington, 1800-1915"
Strass, Sephanie, "A Seasonal View - The Landscapes of Benson Bond Moore"

River Birches

Oil on Canvas, Signed lower right and titled and signed on reverse

Painting: 20" x 24"
Frame: 24" x 28"

** For other paintings by artists from Maryland, Virginia, Washington DC or North Carolina, click on the “Regional Artists” button on our Homepage.

August Herman Olson Rolle, painter, printmaker and graphic artist, dabbled in many activities before turning his focus to art. Born in Sibley County, MN, in 1875, his first path toward adulthood led him to Red Wing Seminary. Service in the Spanish-American War, eventually lead him to Washington, DC where he became a forestry expert for the Census Bureau.

Once in Washington, Rolle studied at the Corcoran School of Art under Messer, Brooke and Moser beginning in 1905. His specialties were landscapes and seascapes in oil and watercolor, but he also executed dryprints, woodblock prints, monotypes and etchings.

Following the tradition of his day, Rolle was active in many art societies. In addition to helping found the Landscape Club of Washington in 1915, he served as its president for many years. That was just one among a number of affiliations which also included the Sculptors and Gravers Society of Washington, the American Federation of Arts, and the Arts Club of Washington.

Rolle also exhibited at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the old National Gallery, the Maryland Institute and at the Greater Washington Independent Exhibition of 1935. He had a joint exhibition of prints with fellow artist Benson B. Moore at Venable's Gallery in 1924.

Rolle died in Washington, DC in 1941. Today, his work is represented at the Corcoran Gallery, the Historical Society of Washington, DC, and the Arts Club of Washington. A retrospective of his work was held at the Corcoran's 1982 "Washington on the Potomac" and at the National Museum of American Art's 1984 show "The Capitol Image."

Sources:
Consentino, Andrew and Glassie, Henry. "The Capital Image, Painters in Washington, 1800-1915"
Falk, Peter, ed. "Who Was Who in American Art 1564-1975"
McMahan, Virgil. "The Artists of Washington, D.C. 1796-1996"

Lake Scene in Western Maryland

Oil-on-canvas, signed lower right and dated “1861”

Painting Size: 8 ½”” x 16”
Frame Size: 12.5” x 20”

Thompson was a landscape, historical and portrait painter, born in Baltimore where he studied law with his father. In 1859 Thompson decided to become and artist and opened a studio in Baltimore. During the first year of the Civil War (1860) he worked as a combat artist for Harper’s Weekly and the Illustrated London News, primarily illustrating battles in Virginia. In 1861, the year this painting is dated, he left to study in Paris at the École des Beaux Arts with Gleyre, Lambinet and Pasini. He also traveled to Italy and Germany before establishing his studio in New York City in 1868. He made several return trips to France, Spain, North Africa and the Mediterranean. In addition to his travel landscapes, many of his exhibited works were of colonial revolutionary subjects.

Thompson was a founding member of the Society of American Artists and a member of the National Academy of Design. He exhibited extensively including at the Paris Salon, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art, the Paris Expo of 1878 and the National Academy of Design.

Sources:
Falk, Peter, ed. Who Was Who in American Art 1564-1975
Wright, R. Lewis. Artists in Virginia Before 1900

** For other paintings by artists from Maryland, Virginia, Washington DC or North Carolina, click on the “Regional Artists” button on our Homepage.

Macbeth

Oil on artist board

Provenance: Sycamore Farm, Portsmouth, VA (Estate of Robert Vick and Charles Sibley)

Note: Listed in "The National Academy of Design Exhibition Record 1861-1900" page 249, number 482.

Painting Size: 6 ½” x 6 ½”
Frame Size: 10” x 10”

Born in Ireland, Duggan was brought to the United States as a young child, probably around 1810. He was a student at the National Academy of Design from approximately 1842-1849. He was a frequent exhibitor at the National Academy as well as at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art.

Duggan was known to have exhibited works at the Academy (1844-51) which were religious and historical in nature although he was admired by his contemporaries as a portraitist in charcoal and crayon - undoubtedly the source of his livelihood. Later works exhibited (1855-56) were portraits only. He also sculpted several medals for distribution by the American Art-Union. In the late 1840’s Duggan was a professor of drawing at the Free Academy of New York (later the City College of New York).

Duggan suffered from tuberculosis and retired in 1856 at which time he went to live in London with relatives. In the spring of 1861 he went to Paris for what was intended to be an extended stay but was there only until October when he succumbed to his illness.

Sources:
Falk, Peter, ed. Who Was Who in American Art 1564-1975
Groce & Wallace, Dictionary of Artists in America, 1564-1860
Mallett, Daniel Trowbridge. Index of Artists

Misty Morning at Windsor Castle

Oil-on-canvas, signed lower left

Painting Size: 18.5”” x 29.5”
Frame Size: 31” x 42”

**Please Note: This item is not currently on view in our gallery. Please call at least 48 hours in advance if you wish to see it.

Tyler is known to have lived and worked in Troy, NY during the 1850‘s and 60‘s where, aside from Abel Buell Moore, he was Troy’s best known artist. According to William Gerdts “Troy was a prosperous industrial and commercial city. It was also a major center of education in the 19th century. Tyler had gone to Troy to work for the carriage company of Eaton and Gilbert. In 1858 Tyler opened his own painting studio (and he) painted the local landscape but was more drawn to the sea. He specialized in scenes off the coast of Long Island and Massachusetts.” It is apparent from the record of his works that he traveled extensively in Europe painting scenes in Venice and scenes in England such as this luminist view of Windsor Castle. Tyler also painted the landscapes of the White Mountains (NH) and the Keene Valley in the Adirondacks of New York.

Tyler exhibited at the National Academy of Design (1862-1867 and 1878) and his work “Breezy Day Off Boston Light” is held by the Troy Public Library.

Sources:
Benezit, E. "Dictionnaire des Peintres, Sculpteurs, Dessinateurs et Graveurs"
Creps, Bob, "Biographical Encyclopedia of American Painters, Sculptors &Engravers of the U.S."
Falk, Peter, ed. "Who Was Who in American Art 1564-1975"
Gerdts, William H., "Art Across America, Two Centuries of Regional Painting"

Man in a Cottonfield

Oil on board, signed lower left.

$16,500. Painting Size: 8.25” x 4.25”
Frame Size: 12.5” x 8.5”

A lifelong artist, Walker exhibited his first painting at the age of twelve and continued to paint until his death 71 years later.

In the 1860’s Walker traveled to Dusseldorf for artistic training and remained for several years. Returning to Charleston, he joined the Confederate Army and served as a cartographer. At the conclusion of the war, Walker moved to Baltimore where he had spent a portion of his childhood. Until 1876, Walker split his residence between Charleston and Baltimore. However, on a visit to New Orleans in that year, he fell in love with the city and spent the next 29 years, calling it home.

Best known for his genre scenes of African Americans in the post Civil War South, Walker is listed in numerous references including Who Was Who in American Art by Falk and Art Across America by Gerdts. He has also been the subject of several monographs.

William Aiken Walker was born in Charleston, South Carolina, on March 11, 1839. He had an artistic bent at a very early age; he exhibited his first oil painting at the South Carolina Institute in 1850 when he was 11 years old. The first known still life by Walker was produced in 1858. Animal and fish portraits followed, along with a few portraits and landscapes.

During the Civil War, Walker served as a private in Charleston's Palmetto Regiment of the South Carolina Volunteers. He was given a medical discharge in August 1861. He continued to serve as a volunteer draftsman in the Confederate Engineers Corps.

When Charleston was decimated in a great fire in 1861, Walker recorded the resultant ruins. In 1863 Charleston was shelled by Union troops; Walker recorded that event too.

In 1864 Walker created perhaps the most collectible of all decks of American playing cards. Sixteen of the cards carried miniature paintings, ranging from the bombardment of Fort Sumter to portraits of Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, P.G.T. Beauregard, and Stonewall Jackson as kings.

What Walker did between 1866 and 1868 remains a mystery, but by the latter year he had settled in Baltimore. He visited New York and Cuba but was back in Baltimore by 1871, when he began the series of paintings that would capture the attention of present-day collectors.

Walker's Gathering Herbs, 1871, depicted an African-American woman at the herb garden, a basket in her arms, and another on her head. The depictions of what would be later known as "The Sunny South" had commenced. Although he painted scenes depicting Anglo-Saxon citizens and landscapes, it would be the African-American scenes that would come to be recognized as Walker's seminal body of work.

He traveled extensively in the South, from South Carolina to the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, to Florida, to New Orleans, and wherever he traveled, he painted. The focus of his energy from the early 1880's to the mid-1890's was the cotton trade. Walker was fortunate in many ways, not the least of which is the fact that his paintings were collected and sold during his lifetime. Major paintings sold in the $70 to $100 range while he still was alive.

By the time Walker had reached his sixties, he returned to landscapes and still life subjects, though his bread-and-butter work was still the genre scenes of the Old South. Walker died on January 3, 1921, just two months shy of his 82nd birthday.

Moonlight on the Chesapeake

Oil on canvas, signed lower right

Painting size: 12” x 10”

Frame size: 15.5” x 13.5”

** For other paintings by artists from Maryland, Virginia, Washington DC or North Carolina, click on the “Regional Artists” button on our Homepage.

Watson was born in Baltimore, MD. He studied with A. Castaigne, E.S. Whiteman and D. Woodward. A founding member of the Baltimore Charcoal Club, he was also a member of the Baltimore Watercolor Club. Watson exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts Annual Exhibition in 1906. He is noted for his Tonalist marine paintings where the softly dawnlit skies blend with the pale ocean waters, often with a bare outline of a sailboat.

Source:
Falk, Peter, ed. Who Was Who in American Art 1564-1975

From the Estate of Antoinette Hughes, Catonsville, MD

Autumn in the Blue Ridge Mountains (near Emmittsburg, PA[sic]) 1955

Oil on board, signed lower left and dated “1955”. Titled on the reverse

Painting Size: 15.5” x 19.5”
Frame Size: 23.5” x 27.5”

** For other painting by artists from Maryland, Virginia or Washington DC, click on the "Regional Artists" button on our homepage

Benson Bond Moore, painter, etcher and teacher was born in Washington, DC. He studied at the Corcoran School of Art with Messer and Brooke , and also with Weyl . He continued his studies in drawing at the Linthicum Institute under Ballenger and learned painting conservation from his father.

Active in professional societies, he was a member and officer of the Landscape Club of Washington. He was also a longtime member of the Society of Washington Artists. He exhibited with both groups from as early as 1915 and continued through the 1930's. His work was also shown at the Corcoran Gallery of Art.

As an artist, he became well known and honored for his local scenes, many of which are in major public collections. His works are held by the National Museum of American Art; Historical Society of Washington, DC; Library of Congress; The White House; Bibliothèque National de Paris; Cosmos Club; National Museum of American History and the Los Angeles Museum of Art. Over his life, he was honored with numerous awards for his work.

Sources: Consentino, Andrew and Glassie, Henry, The Capital Image, Painters in Washington, 1800-1915
McMahan, Virgil, The Artists of Washington, D.C. 1796-1996

Carib Indians Around a Jungle Campfire, with a Piton in the Background

Oil on canvas, signed indistinctly on the stretcher. Mid 19th century carved wood, compo and gilt frame

Painting Size: 9.25” x 12”
Frame Size: 13.5” x 16.5”

Bethesda

Oil on canvas, signed lower left and titled on the reverse.

Painting size: 20” x 24” Frame size: 25.5” x 29”

** Please Note - This painting came directly from the Estate of Mr. O’Brien. For other examples, type “O’Brien” into the search box.

** For other paintings by artists from Maryland, Virginia, Washington DC or North Carolina, click on the “Regional Artists” button on our Homepage.

Born in Newtonville, Massachusetts, O’Brien exhibited a love of drawing and painting from a very early age. As a high school student, he took all possible elective courses in art and technical drawing. He supplemented this study with evening courses at M.I.T. Following his move to Washington, DC as a young man, he enrolled in the Washington Workshop of the Arts. WWA, like the Art Students League in New York City, was a school in which all the classes were taught by a rotating roster of professional artists.

During WW II, his technical artistic training served his country well when he was put to work as a map maker. In the final year of the war, O’Brien married. On his honeymoon in New York City, he found time to paint the rooftop view from his hotel room window. This initiated a lifelong pursuit of city painting (his family was inclined to call it an obsession).

Starting with the founding of Federal Graphics, a commercial art firm he launched with a partner in 1947, he pursued a commercial career for the majority of his life. However, he always considered painting his “real” work, and his dedication to this vocation was apparent in a myriad of ways. He helped to found the Montgomery County Art Association and held memberships in the Arts Council of Montgomery County and American Art League.

Throughout his life, he exhibited widely, both as an individual and in group shows. The Arts Club of Washington, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Brooklyn Museum of Art, Montgomery College, and the Rehoboth Art League were a few among the many venues at which his works were shown. In addition, he exhibited in several private galleries.

During the course of his painting, O’Brien noticed that the paints on his palette sometimes mixed into designs as interesting as those more deliberately created. From this observation arose the text, Design By Accident, first published in 1968. The book became widely used by art teachers following very favorably reviews by newspapers and magazines. It was even reviewed by Scientific American from a technological-aesthetic.

A draftsman, illustrator, writer and most importantly painter, O’Brien was fortunate to have his work recognised and appreciated during his life. He won awards from The Montgomery County Art Association, Rehoboth Art League and American Art League. Even art critics praised his work with the most succinct calling his paintings, “familiar scenes, fresher and lighter than life”. (Florence Berryman of The Washington Star)

O’Brien believed that the “creative urge” was something all children have. However, as adults, that impulse falls victim to ever growing demands and responsibilities. He maintained that artists are able to keep alive the childlike ability to see beauty and mystery in commonplace things.

Thanks to his sense of wonder, he left us deeply in his debt. His paintings remind us that every day that Washington, DC is full of inspiring sights that fall outside of the traditional “glamour” views depicted by most artists.

Schooner off the Atlantic Coast

Watercolor on paper, signed lower left and dated “1896”

Sight Size:13" x 26"
Frame Size: 23.25" x 36"

Lewis was born and died and Philadelphia where he studied with Paul Weber from about 1850-55. According to Peter Falk ("Who Was Who in American Art"), “he was one of the most popular landscape painters of Philadelphia during the late 19th century. His early works were chiefly scenes of the Lehigh, Susquehana, and Wissihickon Rivers of Pennsylvania, and were in great demand. Before 1860 he also exhibited landscapes of New York and New England and even some Cuban scenes. By the mid 1870’s he turned increasingly to shoreline views with yachting scenes, painting prolifically in watercolor from Cape May, NJ to Narragansett, RI. Wealthy and admired, he entertained in a grand style in his opulent Philadelphia home surrounded by an extensive collection of antique furniture, china and decorative arts.”

Extensive Woodland Landscape with Stream

Oil on canvas, signed.

Painting size: 20.25” x 26”
Frame size: 31.25” x 47.25”

Decker received his art training from R. Swain Gifford. His first important recognition occurred when he was thirty-six when the the National Academy of Design exhibited one of his paintings. That same year, the Brooklyn Art Association also exhibited one of his works. He went on to become a well known exhibitor in Brooklyn and exhibited at the National Academy of Design from 1883 to 1898 . He was also a professionally successful artist during his life with a record of sales to numerous affluent patrons. He was a member of the Brooklyn Art Club and Society of Brooklyn Artists.

Decker is listed in Who Was Who in American Art by Falk.

Charles Lanman (American, 1819-1895)

Oil on paper laid-down, signed.

Lanman is listed in The Artists of Washington, DC 1796-1996 by McMahan.

Painting size: 11” x 15”
Frame size: 16” x 20”