Artwork
The Artist Sketching at Mount Desert, Maine
The Artist Sketching at Mount Desert, Maine is an oil painting by the Hudson River School artist Sanford Robinson Gifford. It dates from 1864 and is held in the collection of the National Gallery of Art.
- Inscription
- Inscribed:lower right: S R Gifford / 1865 / mt. [?] / July 22, 1864
About this work
Painted in 1864 and 1865, it reads less as topography than as an argument for plein-air work, putting the Hudson River School painter inside the scene.
On July 22, 1864, Sanford Robinson Gifford sat on a granite ledge atop Mount Desert Island and began recording the Maine coast in oil. The small canvas, just 11 by 19 inches, shows the artist at work, his supplies and unfinished sketch before him, the spruce forests and shoreline dissolving into humid air. Painted in 1864 and 1865, it reads less as topography than as an argument for plein-air work, putting the Hudson River School painter inside the scene.
It entered the National Gallery of Art in 2004, a gift from Jo Ann and Julian Ganz, Jr.
Subject & Meaning
The painting depicts Sanford Robinson Gifford sketching in the coastal landscape of Mount Desert, Maine, framed by the Atlantic Ocean, mountains, sky, and trees. As a landscape with a self-portrait, the work documents the artist engaged in plein air practice, a hallmark of the Hudson River School. The specific location, Mount Desert, was a celebrated subject for American artists of the period.
The inclusion of the artist sketching emphasizes the act of direct observation from nature, linking the artistic process to the depicted scenery. This composition thus functions both as a record of a particular place and as a meta-commentary on the artist's role in translating the natural world into art.
Technique & Style
The work is executed in oil paint on canvas, a medium and support characteristic of Sanford Robinson Gifford's practice. The canvas dimensions are 27.9 × 48.3 cm. No specific information regarding the artist's handling, brushwork, or the painting's condition is provided in the sources, and formal or stylistic qualities beyond the generic landscape genre are not detailed.
History & Provenance
Sanford Robinson Gifford created the painting in 1864. Its provenance begins with the artist, then possibly appeared in an Artists' Fund Society sale in New York on December 29, 1865, as "Green Mountain, Mt. Desert," and was owned by Graham.
It may have belonged to John Frederick Kensett and, by 1881, to Miss A.M. Williams of Augusta, Maine. By 1978 it was with Lee Freedman of Southwest Harbor, Maine; then with Thomas Colville, New Haven; and was purchased in 1979 by Jo Ann and Julian Ganz, Jr., Los Angeles. The Ganzes gave it as a partial and promised gift to the National Gallery of Art in 2004, with the gift completed in 2008. No commission is recorded.
The painting is held by the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., where it entered the collection as a partial and promised gift from Jo Ann and Julian Ganz, Jr., in 2004, with the gift completed in 2008. Its exhibition history includes a possible showing in the 1873 exhibition of works owned by John Frederick Kensett, and it was exhibited as part of the Ganz collection in a 1981 exhibition that also produced a catalogue. It was additionally recorded in the 1881 memorial catalogue of Sanford Robinson Gifford's paintings.
Overview
Sanford Robinson Gifford's The Artist Sketching at Mount Desert, Maine (1864–1865) is a small oil painting that holds considerable importance in American landscape art. Depicting the artist himself at work on Mount Desert Island, it serves as a visual declaration of the plein-air approach favored by many Hudson River School painters. The canvas, though modest in scale, encapsulates Gifford's commitment to direct observation of nature, presenting a scene where the act of creation is central to the wilderness experience.
Artist & collection
Artist
Sanford Robinson Gifford (July 10, 1823 – August 29, 1880) was an American landscape painter and a leading member of the second generation of Hudson River School artists.
Compared in the Color & Light course