JOSEPH RODEFER DECAMP (ME/MA/PA/FL/OH, 1858-1923)

"View from the Sprague House, Prouts Neck, Maine" (on Bohemia Lane, off Winslow Homer Road), a seascape from the shore, oil on canvas, signed lower left, inscribed "To my friend Sprague" and dated 1905, in the original hand carved gilt matched corner Arts & Crafts frame, OS: 32 1/2" x 37 1/2", SS: 22" x 27". Very good condition. Provenance: Gift from the artist to Phineas W. Sprague. Descended through family.Joseph Rodefer DeCamp (1858-1923) American Impressionist from Boston, one of the avant-garde group “The Ten”, which like parallel events on the Continent would show, provided a transition from the more staid academic studio schools, emphasizing plein air painting and a focus on light and atmosphere created by the use of loosely applied brilliant color. His portraits were more traditional, having studied under Frank Duveneck in Munich when young (both were raised in Cincinnati), and always remaining a member of the ‘Boston School’ of portraiture. But it was his landscapes and seascapes, transformed by time spent at Annisquam, Massachusetts and Prouts Neck, Maine, that would inspire generations of American painters. Few of his landscapes exist today, as many were destroyed in a tragic studio fire in Boston at the Harcourt Building in 1904; his Maine studio also burned. It is thought that fewer than 100 canvases survived between the two.