?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,500 - $ 2,500
LOUIS EILSHEMIUS (1864 - 1941) Arctic Seascape.
Oil on placard for The Art Reformer, 1911. 267x345 mm; 13⅝x10½ inches. Signed in oil, lower left.
Provenance Purchased from the artist by Julius Zirinsky, New York, 1936 (label). Acquired from the above by James N. Rosenberg, Scarsdale, New York, December 28, 1944, with an inscription on the frame back. Gift from the above to San Francisco Museum of Art, 1953 (accession number 53.1141). Collection of Gerald Ferguson, Halifax, Nova Scotia. Thence by descent to current owner, New York.
Louis Eilshemius' self-published periodical, The Art Reformer ran its first issue in May 1909. From 1909 to 1910, he began circulating his own self aggrandizing handbills, but after this period of heightened productivity, he was perhaps most discouraged with his progress as an artist and writer. Paintings from this period are generally smaller and were made on a variety of support, like the present painting. He took up the The Art Reformer again for six issues from 1911 to 1912, and is believed to have stopped painting in 1912, becoming increasingly frustrated with his lack of success. In 1913, he abandoned the belief that his surname was responsible, and began to sign his name with the proper spelling.
