Sep 21, 2023 - Sale 2645

Sale 2645 - Lot 8

Price Realized: $ 7,500
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 8,000 - $ 12,000
EDMUND DARCH LEWIS
Cuban Landscape at Sunset.

Oil on panel, circa 1864. 305x206 mm; 12x8 1/8 inches. Signed and dated in oil, lower left recto.

Provenance: Private collection, Massachusetts.

Lewis (1835-1910) was born in Philadelphia, and his talent as a painter was recognized early in life. He trained in the tradition of the Hudson River School under Paul Weber, a German artist, before exhibiting at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts at age nineteen. Though Lewis spent much of his time painting land and marinescapes in the Catskills and in New England, he made at least two trips to Cuba in the 1860s and 1870s.

Lewis was able to create contrast in his paintings without strong color differentiations; capturing light with a glowing quality which lended itself to Luminism, especially in his depictions of water. The beauty and idealized nature of his work maintained the grand, overwhelming aspects of Romanticism, which heavily influenced the students of the Hudson River School. In his later years, after significant success in oil painting, Lewis shifted to focus more on watercolor painting.