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The Garden
191420 x 24 in. (50.8 x 61 cm)
Ernest Lawson
United States (Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, 1873 - 1939, Miami, FL)
Object Type:
Painting
Medium and Support:
Oil on canvas
Credit Line:
Gift of the Estate of Emily and James Sibley Watson
Accession Number:
1951.36
Location: Not currently on view
While many early twentieth century American paintings celebrated buildings, bridges and the hustle and bustle of the city, tranquil subjects, including Ashcan artist Ernest Lawson’s Garden, filled canvases as well.
In documenting a formal garden owned by H.H. Rogers in exclusive Tuxedo Park, New York, Lawson chose rich and vivid colors that evoked the warmth and languor of a summer interlude. The view of the charming teahouse, complete with sculpture, suggests afternoons filled with genteel conversation and desultory reading, or spent drifting off to the sound of lapping water, far removed from the clamor of Lie’s nearby Brooklyn Bridge or Sloan’s Election Night.
[Gallery label text, 2007]
Ernest Lawson moved to New York in 1898, and in 1908 he exhibited at Macbeth Gallery with The Eight.
While this garden vista is an uncharacteristically intimate view by Lawson, it demonstrates his intense use of a color palette that was referred to as consisting of "crushed jewels." The painting was exhibited in 1916 at the Memorial Art Gallery, acquired from the exhibition by longtime MAG patrons, the Watsons, and generously donated to the Gallery in 1951. Long thought to be a Rochester garden, the subject was definitively identified by Deirdre Cunningham, the George Eastman House Nancy R. Turner landscape curator, as a garden in Tuxedo Park, New York. The current owners are in the process of restoring the garden, abandoned for many years, to its original beauty.
[Gallery label text, 2003]
In documenting a formal garden owned by H.H. Rogers in exclusive Tuxedo Park, New York, Lawson chose rich and vivid colors that evoked the warmth and languor of a summer interlude. The view of the charming teahouse, complete with sculpture, suggests afternoons filled with genteel conversation and desultory reading, or spent drifting off to the sound of lapping water, far removed from the clamor of Lie’s nearby Brooklyn Bridge or Sloan’s Election Night.
[Gallery label text, 2007]
Ernest Lawson moved to New York in 1898, and in 1908 he exhibited at Macbeth Gallery with The Eight.
While this garden vista is an uncharacteristically intimate view by Lawson, it demonstrates his intense use of a color palette that was referred to as consisting of "crushed jewels." The painting was exhibited in 1916 at the Memorial Art Gallery, acquired from the exhibition by longtime MAG patrons, the Watsons, and generously donated to the Gallery in 1951. Long thought to be a Rochester garden, the subject was definitively identified by Deirdre Cunningham, the George Eastman House Nancy R. Turner landscape curator, as a garden in Tuxedo Park, New York. The current owners are in the process of restoring the garden, abandoned for many years, to its original beauty.
[Gallery label text, 2003]
Marks
Artist's signature, lower left: E. Lawson 1914
Provenance
Daniel Gallery, New York; purchased by Mr. and Mrs. James Sibley Watson, Rochester, NY in 1916; given to the Gallery in 1951
Keywords
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Additional Images
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Exhibition List
This object was included in the following exhibitions:
- An Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture by Robert Vonnoh and Bessie Potter Vonn Memorial Art Gallery 1/6/1916 - 1/30/1916
- American Paintings from Collection of the Memorial Art Gallery Memorial Art Gallery 1/13/1967 - 5/14/1967
- Treasures from Rochester Memorial Art Gallery 4/14/1977 - 5/28/1977
- Down Garden Paths: The Floral Environment in American Art Montclair Art Museum 10/2/1983 - 5/27/1984
- Painters of a New Century: The Eight Milwaukee Art Museum 9/6/1991 - 9/21/1992
- Ernest Lawson Gerald Peters Gallery 11/9/2000 - 12/23/2000
- Circa 1900: From the Genteel Tradition to the Jazz Age Albright-Knox Art Gallery 3/3/2001 - 8/25/2002
- The American Impressionists and the Garden 3/11/2010 - 5/15/2011
- The American Impressionist Garden: Color & Light 5/13/2016 - 5/16/2017
Bibliography
This object has the following bibliographic references:
- Article Scope: Article. Memorial Art Gallery. Gallery Notes. Rochester, NY: Memorial Art Gallery, 1935-1995. Volume Number: 17, Issue Number: 2. Issue Date: November-December 1951.
- Article Scope: Reproduction only. Denys Sutton. Treasures from Rochester: Exhibited at Wildenstein Galleries, New York, April 14-May 28, 1977: Summary Catalogue. Rochester, NY: Memorial Art Gallery, 1977.
- Art Digest. New York, NY: Art Digest, Inc.
- Docent Newsletter. Rochester, NY: Memorial Art Gallery
- American Art Review. Kansas City, MO: Kellaway Pub. Co., 1973-.
- Article Author: Leeds, Valerie Ann. Article Title: Ernest Lawson in a New Light. Article Scope: Article. Valerie Ann Leeds. Ernest Lawson. New York, NY: Gerald Peters Gallery, 2000. Page Number: 76-77, Figure Number: 16
- Helen Raye. Circa 1900: From the Genteel Tradition to the Jazz Age. Buffalo, New York: Buffalo Fine Arts Academy, 2001.
- Article Scope: Entry. Elizabeth Milroy. Painters of a New Century: The Eight & American Art. Milwaukee, WI: Milwaukee Art Museum, 1991.
- Article Scope: Reproduction only. Henry Berry-Hill and Sidney Berry-Hill. Ernest Lawson: American Impressionist, 1873-1939. Leigh-on-Sea, England: F. Lewis, Publishers, Ltd., 1968.
- Article Scope: Entry. William H. Gerdts. Down Garden Paths: The Floral Environment in American Art. Rutherford: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1983.
- An Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture by Robert Vonnoh and Bessie Potter Vonnoh and of Paintings by Ernest Lawson and W. Murray Smith of London, England. Rochester, NY: Memorial Art Gallery, 1916.
- Gardens of the Impressionists. Petaluma, CA: Pomegranate Calendars & Books, 1989.
- MAGazine. Rochester, NY: Memorial Art Gallery
- Article Author: Cunningham, Deirdre F.. Article Title: Ernest Lawson: The Garden. Article Scope: Chapter and reproduction. Marjorie B. Searl, ed. Seeing America: painting and sculpture from the collection of the Memorial Art Gallery of the University of Rochester. Rochester, NY: Memorial Art Gallery, 2006. Page Number: 176-179
- Article Scope: Mention and reproduction. May Brawley Hill. The American Impressionists in the Garden. Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt Univ. Press, 2010.
- Article Title: A Hillside Garden. Article Scope: Article. Architectural Forum. New York, NY: Bilboard Publications Volume Number: 27, Issue Number: 3. Page Number: 73-74
- Article Author: Ferber, Linda S.. Article Title: American Gardens: A Homegrown Impressionist Subject. Article Scope: Mention and reproduction. Impressionism: American Gardens on Canvas. New York, NY: New York Botanical Gardens, 2016. Page Number: 29, 75, Figure Number: 13, p. 27
Portfolio List
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This object is a member of the following portfolios:
Web Links
See links to web pages and lesson plans
Seeing America Inservice
Materials from a teacher in-service presentation Spring 2008
Seeing America
Chapter on Ernest Lawson's The Garden, written by Deirdre F. Cunningham.