PALMER HAYDEN (1890 - 1973) Le Thonier à Basse Marée Concarneau.
Oil on linen canvas, circa 1927-30. 552x457 mm; 21 3/4x18 inches. Signed in oil, lower left recto. Titled and dedicated "With fondest regards to The Harold Neals from the artist" in oil, verso.
Provenance: gift from the artist; Mr. and Mrs. Harold M. Neal, Pittsburgh; Luise Ross Gallery, New York; private collection, Connecticut (1994). Harold M. Neal was an artist and educator who befriended Hayden while organizing exhibitions of African-American artists in Pittsburgh in the 1960s.
This oil painting is a scarce, early canvas of one of Palmer Hayden's favorite subjects. In the summer of 1927, Hayden produced a group of oil paintings, watercolors and sketches from along the Brittany coast. Le Thonier à Basse Marée Concarneau was painted either during this trip or shortly after the artist's return to New York. Le Thonier is a tuna fishing boat - images of these are found in several of his sketchbooks from Concarneau in the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
