The Art of Paul Sawyier

    Paul Sawyier (1865-1917) produced paintings in watercolor, gouache, and oil that bear comparison with the works of his best known American contemporaries.   Yet outside of Kentucky he has remained almost entirely unknown, even in the Catskill area where he spent his last and produced some of his best works. Here for the first time is a through study of the work of Sawyier by an art historian who regards him as a minor master of American impressionism.

    Arthur F. Jones examines Sawyier's work in the context of his Kentucky background and the state of art in America during his lifetime.  Like his teacher, the famous eclectic William Merritt Chase, Sawyier worked in several different styles, sometimes combining them.  Jones traces element of luminism and other styles in Sawyier's paintings but regards the most important of his work as impressionist.   The question of the relationship between American and French impressionism is faced squarely; Jones sees Sawyier's mature style as an adaptation of French impressionism to the Kentucky interest in scenes from the past and to Sawyier's own preferences in subjects, media, and working methods.

    An unusual feature of Jone's study is the exploration of Sawyier's extensive use of photographs in painting both contemporary and noncomtemporary scenes.   The implications of this practice for an impressionist style are illustrated by detail comparison of photographic models and finished paintings.  Jones also offers insights that assist in placing Sawyier's paintings chronologically, although precise dating of individual paintings if often impossible.

    The details of Sawyier's life have often been obscured by fanciful stories with little foundation in fact.  Jone's painstaking research has cleared away much of this embroidery and left us with a believable portrait of an artist making a serious attempt to live on the proceeds of his painting in a society that found this highly unusual.  Sawyier's years in Frankfort, his sojourn on his houseboat on the Kentucky River, and his later days in New York State are described with attention to his personal life as well as to the growth of his art as he polished the techniques learned as a student in New York and Cincinnati.

    The 130 Illustrations - 74 of them in color include important worked not previously known to the public.  These paintings. in private collections, have in some cases never been exhibited publicly and are reproduced for the first time in this book.

$65.00

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