Lucien Abrams (American, 1870-1941)

Lucien Abrams
(American, 1870-1941)

"Still Life of Peonies in a Cantonese Bowl "

oil on canvas
signed mid right.
Framed.
30" x 25", framed 37" x 32"

Provenance: Private collection, Palm Desert, California.

Literature: Grauer, Michael R., An Impressionist From Texas - Exhibition Catalogue, Albany: Old Jail Art Center, 2013.

Notes: "My art was developed, not in the schools, but by independent study before nature, not trying to copy, but to interpret, to find order in chaos, and put it in plastic form."
Lucien Abrams

A true "rara avis", Lucien Abrams was a Kansas-born American Impressionist with strong ties to Texas and the Old Lyme Art Colony. Born into a financially secure family - his father was a land agent for various railroads and was involved in the early oil industry and his mother was a native Virginian and daughter of a U.S. congressman - Abrams had a privileged childhood which afforded him and his two brothers the opportunity for specialized study and extensive travel. The family eventually settled in Dallas, where they became prominent in local society.

Upon graduating from Princeton with a degree in architecture, Abrams attended the Art Students League where he studied under Frank Vincent DuMond, John Henry Twachtman and William Merritt Chase. In 1894, he traveled to France where he attended classes at the Academie Julian, Academie Colarossi, and James McNeill Whistler's short-lived Academie Carmen. Inevitably influenced by his fellow students and by the various artistic movements then flourishing in the area, Abrams incorporated aspects of Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Fauvism, etc., into his work. He set up a studio in Paris and traveled across Europe and North Africa. Equally adept at landscapes, portrait and still lifes, Abrams continuously honed his style and technique, his subject matter inspired by the specific location in which he found himself - the dusty, bustling bazaars of Algiers, the sun-dappled rooms of Paris, the lush gardens of Connecticut. His earliest works were subdued academic figural studies; his later works employed an intentionally limited color palette of reds, greens, blues, loose brushstrokes, and thicker application and layers of paint. At the onset of WWI, Abrams returned to the United States.

One of the most accomplished of the American Impressionists, he brought this artistic movement to Texas where he created works of the Alamo, missions and other distinctly Texan scenes.

In 1914, possibly at the instigation of his former instructor at the Art Student's League, Frank Vincent DuMond, Abrams became associated with the Old Lyme Art Colony. A city along the meandering Connecticut River, Old Lyme had almost accidentally become a thriving art community for American painters and sculptors. Initiated by Florence Griswold, who invited young artists to work and live in her spacious family home (now the Florence Griswold Museum), the colony soon became an integral center for American Impressionism and such luminaries as Carleton and Guy Wiggins, Childe Hassam, Edward H. Potthast, Robert and Bessie Potter Vonnoh (whose sculpture "The Dance" is offered in lot 577), spent time working and exhibiting there. Abrams eventually purchased a house and greenhouse in Old Lyme on Johnny Cake Hill Road, and he and his wife would travel between Dallas, San Antonio and Old Lyme. During this time, Abrams would frequently paint still lifes of his wife's floral arrangements; though the paining offered here is not dated, it is likely one such work.

Abrams exhibited widely during his career, including Salon d'Automne, Societe des Independants, Society of Independent Artists, Art Institute of Chicago, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and National Academy of Design, but few of his works entered public collections.

A collector as well as an artist, Abrams particularly admired Auguste Renoir and from 1929-1938 he acquired fourteen works by the artist from the esteemed art dealer Durand-Ruel.
Condition Report: No signs of past restorations, though some of the darker pinks fluoresce slightly under UV light due to chemical composition. A surface abrasion lower right at edge and small horizontal abrasion lower left at tabletop. Craquelure pattern emerging lower/mid center in darker pink flower. Frame with textured mat boards; surface marks, nicks and abrasions.