Brown ink and color crayons on paper, double-sided, 1911. 137x192 mm; 5x7½ inches. Signed with the artist's monogram, dated in pencil, and titled in ink lower right, and signed with the artist's monogram and titled "Woodside" in ink verso.
Provenance Robert Bluemner, son of the artist. Henry Heiman II, South Salem, New York (label). Don Barese Fine Art & Antiques, Hamden, Connecticut. Purchased from the above by current owner, Connecticut, April 1, 2006.
Oscar Bluemner, one America's finest Modernist colorists, was largely overlooked for much of his career. Now however his place alongside Georgia O'Keeffe, John Marin, Marsden Hartley and Max Weber— all fellow exhibitors at Alfred Stieglitz's 291 Gallery in New York— is understood and he ranks among the group of most modern and influential artists in America during the early 20th century.
Developing a friendship with Stieglitz around 1911 Bluemner decided to turn completely to painting in 1912 and embarked on a seven-month European voyage. Upon his return, after exposure to works by Paul Cézanne, Vincent van Gogh, as well as the Fauves and Cubists, Bluemner's work reflected a dramatic shift toward the bright, streamlined style that would define his work and parallel the developments made by other American modern artists during the early 20th century. Like Edward Hopper, Bluemner traveled widely along the east coast, in the countryside surrounding New York, and made numerous watercolor studies of landscapes and buildings, virtually all of which are devoid of human presence.
