Présentez votre vente aux enchères à des collectionneurs du monde entier !
Soyez référencé dès maintenantEn vous abonnant, vous acceptez la politique de confidentialité. Désabonnez-vous à tout moment.
Barnebys HQ
Brahegatan 10
BOX 5038
114 37 Stockholm
Toutes les enchères / Autres / Walter Pursel Bohanan (1904–1974) - Paysage urbain moderniste
Walter Pursel Bohanan (1904–1974) Urban landscape, modernist, 1935 Oil on canvas. Signed and dated. Large format. Important work by the American painter Walter Pursel Bohanan (1904–1974), executed in 1935 and belonging to one of the most interesting periods of his production, when his pictorial language was fully immersed in the renewing currents of American modernism in the interwar years. The work presents a powerful composition of urban and landscape character, in which a group of architectures is arranged before a monumental mountainous background. Bohanan deliberately moves away from a strictly naturalistic representation to transform buildings, roads and geographic features into large geometric volumes and color surfaces, building the scene through a succession of planes. The constructions appear reduced to their essential forms. Clear façades, small dark windows, roofs and walls are articulated through precise lines and color changes, while traditional perspective is subordinated to the plastic organization of the surface. The result has a pronounced modernity and reveals the artist’s interest in the simplification and geometrization of reality. Particularly notable is the treatment of the mountainous landscape. The mountains cease to function solely as a background to acquire their own prominence, transformed into large undulating masses. The central, powerful formation stands out, resolved with intense reddish and orange tones, establishing one of the main color focal points of the composition. The palette combines whites, grays, earth tones, ochres, muted greens and reddish hues, establishing a sophisticated balance between warm and cool colors. In front of the monumentality of the mountains and architectures, the foreground gains even greater freedom: the different elements are progressively simplified until, at some points, approaching abstraction. The painting bears evidence of the assimilation of some of the main languages developed by the European avant-gardes of the early 20th century, particularly post-Cubist fragmentation, formal simplification and the reduction of reality to essential structures, reinterpreted from the sensibility of American modernism in the twenties and thirties. Walter Pursel Bohanan (1904–1974) Walter Pursel Bohanan was an American painter and professor closely linked to the Baltimore, Maryland art scene. Trained at the Maryland Institute, he developed his activity within a generation of artists who helped introduce and develop modern languages in Maryland’s art scene during the interwar period. His direct contact with the European artistic environment is also documented. The Walters Art Museum of Baltimore records Bohanan acquiring artworks in Paris around 1928, a circumstance particularly interesting for contextualizing his approach to the new European pictorial languages. During the early 1930s Bohanan appears integrated into the core of young modern artists active in Baltimore, connected with figures such as Herman Maril, Aaron Sopher, Mervin Jules and Chet La More. He also participated in the context of the American federal art programs developed during the Great Depression, with documented ties to the Public Works of Art Project (PWAP) in Maryland. Institutional consideration of his production was already manifested in his youth. In 1932, The Phillips Collection in Washington acquired Sail and Pier, a painting Bohanan created that same year. The institution currently preserves several works by the artist, a circumstance that allows situating him within the development of American modernism of his generation. After his death, The Phillips Collection organized in 1975 a solo exhibition devoted to Walter Bohanan, held from April 19 to June 1, which brought together 27 works by the artist and had its own catalog. An important work from 1935 The present painting is dated 1935, a moment especially interesting within Bohanan’s trajectory. By then the artist had already surpassed his initial training, had direct contact with the Parisian art environment and was developing a clearly personal modern language. In this composition, Bohanan does not intend to reproduce the landscape literally. He interprets and reorganizes it. Architecture and nature are subjected to the same constructive logic, based on geometrization, synthesis of forms and the structural use of color. The considerable format also gives the composition an important visual presence. The mountain masses acquire monumentality and the different architectures are distributed across the surface forming a complex network of planes and volumes. Therefore, this is a work particularly representative of Bohanan’s modernist aspect, chronologically placed in the midst of the 1930s and characterized by an interesting balance between figuration, landscape and formal experimentation. The painting is signed and dated “1935” in the lower left corner. Framed dimensions: 74 × 94 cm. The conservation state should be assessed carefully using the photographs provided, which are an integral part of the description. The work shows signs of its age, including craquelure visible in certain areas of the painted surface. The work is presented framed. The frame is included free of charge as a courtesy, not assigned any commercial value and not considered an integral part of the work. Any possible damage suffered by the frame during transport cannot be a reason for a claim. Due to the format of the work, careful and professional packaging will be used, employing materials appropriate to provide maximum protection during transport. IMPORTANT: shipments to islands, extra-peninsular territories or destinations requiring customs procedures may incur additional transport, handling and/or customs costs, which will be borne by the buyer.
Estimation:€2,800
Vers la vente aux enchèresEstimation:
€2,800
Présentez votre vente aux enchères à des collectionneurs du monde entier !
Soyez référencé dès maintenant€739.09
