+ Expand
Artist or Maker: John La Farge (1835-1910)
+ Expand
Provenance: Graham McFerson, before 1967.
Alfred Evans, before 1967.
Charles Merritt, New York, until 1967.
Graham Gallery, New York, 1967.
Sotheby's, New York, 17 April 1982, lot 127.
Private collection, New York, 1982.
+ Expand
Exhibited: Boston, Massachusetts, Doll & Richards, Exhibition and Private Sale of Paintings in Water Color and Oil from South Sea Islands and Japan, February 14-20, 1895, no. 28.
New York, Durand-Ruel Galleries and elsewhere, Paintings, Studies, Sketches and Drawings, Mostly Records of Travel 1886 and 1890-91 by John La Farge, February 25-March 25, 1895, no. 134.
Boston, Massachusetts, Doll & Richards, Exhibition and Private Sale of Paintings in Water Color and Oil Chiefly from South Sea Islands, February 14-27, 1896, no. 7.
Cleveland, Ohio, Gallery of the Picture Exhibition Society and elsewhere, Paintings, Studies, Sketches and Drawings, Mostly Records of Travel, 1886 and 1890-91, by John La Farge, December 23, 1896-March 20, 1897, no. 50.
New York, Wunderlich & Company, Catalogue of Works by John La Farge, March-April 1897, no. 31.
Worcester, Massachusetts, Davis Art Galleries, Watercolors by John La Farge, April 4-13, 1898, no. 18.
New York, New York Cultural Center and elsewhere, Three Centuries of the American Nude, May 9-November 16, 1975, no. 152.
+ Expand
Literature: "Exhibition of Paintings by John La Farge and His Son," Boston Evening Transcript, February 15, 1896, p. 9.
"Art," Chicago Times Herald, February 7, 1897, p. 31.
W.H. Gerdts, The Great American Nude, New York, 1974, pp. 132-4, illustrated.
+ Expand
Notes: PROPERTY OF A PRIVATE COLLECTION
While many of La Farge's South Seas watercolors served as the basis for easel paintings or as illustrations for books and articles, this work was created as an independent exhibition piece. Dr. William H. Gerdts comments that "La Farge's exploration of the theme of the nude found its fullest expression in the watercolors and oils painted...on his travels to the South Seas...Here, curiously like Gauguin in his personal reaction, if not in his paintings, La Farge saw the survival of a heroic age in the primitive simplicity of the islands [and] found his own Golden Age among the Pacific natives." (The Great American Nude: A History in Art, New York, 1974, pp. 132-3)
