On the Seashore, Looking Eastward at Sunset (Primary Title)
On the Seashore Looking Eastward (Former Title)
Sanford Robinson Gifford, American, 1823 - 1880 (Artist)
Gifford painted this view along the beaches of Long Island near his home in New York City. The first in a series of four sketches of the same scene, it demonstrates the artist’s signature use of warm tones and his ability to paint with loose brushstrokes. Gifford renders each bather in short passages of peach and tan pigment, their reflections captured in the sheen of water atop the wet sand. This technique would have been tightened in his final composition. However, although the final painting was applauded at the Brooklyn Art Association exhibition in 1879 for its “marvelous and exquisite atmospheric effect,” this study is the version that the artist’s widow kept in her personal collection.
James W. and Frances Gibson McGlothlin Collection
"American Art from the McGlothlin Collection" Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (1 May - 18 July 2010).
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