ODE TO AUTUMN
Collector’s Focus: Visions of the Fall
Back in the days of manual typewriters and telephones my job was to record the statistics of Bowdoin College football games and phone them in to The New York Times for their Sunday editions. But it was fall in New England and, after the stress, there was foliage and apple cider.
Todd M. Casey comes from the New England industrial city of Lowell, Massachusetts, also home to James McNeill Whistler and Jack Kerouac. He trained in classical painting techniques with Max Ginsburg and Jacob Collins. His painterly still lifes of objects in repose invite taking time for contemplation.
A celebration for the wedding of Crown Prince Ludwig and Princess Therese in Munich in October, 1810, evolved into an annual festival of music and beer. In Casey’s Octoberfest, the dark brew beckons in its tall glass. Fall is also the time of harvest, the glass of beer casting its shadow on a pumpkin. October 31 is the day of All Hallows’ Eve, honoring the hallowed dead. Halloween has evolved into a night of costumes and trick-or-treating. One of the treats is candy corn, which was first introduced in 1880 as “Chicken Feed.” Casey’s composition draws the eye to the brightly lit candy corn, and it rises with the bubbles of the beer to the top of the glass.
Childe Hassam (1859-1935) recorded a classic fall theme in Church at Old Lyme, Connecticut, a subject he painted three times between 1903 and 1906. The building burned down in 1907 and was rebuilt two years later with the help of artists in the Old Lyme art colony, a bastion of American impressionism.
Hassam thought the term “impressionism” had become “perverted.” He wrote, “The true impressionism is realism. So many people do not observe. They take the ready-made axioms laid down by others, and walk blindly in a rut without trying to see for themselves.”
Mary Page Evans writes, “I am primarily a landscape painter. I work directly from nature—en plein air. I look at a specific landscape, establish its locale, the time of day, the quality of light, and paint it. Becoming involved with its particularities, I get to know it as if I were painting a figure or a still life. During the process, I am always creating and destroying
until I arrive at the inevitability of this particular landscape.” She continues, “When I paint the landscape, I feel like singing.”
Her graphic Little October is a colorists’ impression of the fall landscape when the leaves have turned and begun to fall, their trunks and branches silhouetted against the pool of color.
The great colorist Wolf Kahn is still painting at 90. He says color “is my primary interest. I am always trying to get to the danger point, where color either becomes too sweet or too harsh; too noisy or too quiet.” In A Light Blue Sky, he, too, emphasizes the graphic quality of the trees against the colors of fall.
He describes his more recent work as “less descriptive,” interpreting the energy of a scene with vibrant interactions of color.
Throughout this special section, collectors can view a variety of autumnal artwork
from prominent galleries and artists across the country.
Stunning landscape artwork from Spanish artist Miguel Peidro can be viewed at Lotton Gallery in Chicago. “The light reflecting on the water and the warm colors of autumn flow through Miguel Peidro’s paintings. Traveling along a wooded path amongst the gold, red and amber leaves, inviting one to go further down the path to find what only nature can provide as an experience during autumn,” says Lotton Gallery director Christina Franzoso. Peidro’s enchanting depictions of fall foliage beautifully encapsulate the tranquility of this idyllic season.
Rashmi Rekha’s Autumn in Greater Ottawa depicts a still, serene body of water reflecting brilliant red and golden hues from trees towering overhead. “I am inspired by the splendor of nature,” says Rekha. “I believe in painting emotions on the canvas rather than painting a picture. And I enjoy narrating a story on my canvas using bright colors and multiple layers of paint.” Through her study of physics, Rekha says she has been able to see things in different ways, approaching her artwork from both a place of creative passion and
analytical investigation.
Sea of Sailboats, an oil by Derek Penix, was inspired by a September trip the artist took to the French Riviera. “These sailboats float in the harbor of a beautiful town called Villefranche-sur-Mer that has mountains that overlook the harbor and yacht-glittered ocean below. Aside from its breathtaking views, Villefranchesur-Mer is very special to me because that is where my wife and I married 12 years ago,” says Penix.
The artwork of Bev Rodin is gentle and delicate, with smooth edges and an almost misty element to many of her pieces. Sanctuary showcases a brilliant blending of vast blue skies and water. Rodin says she recently heard from a longtime collector: “The collector said my paintings had been enjoyed by family and guests for several decades and thanked me for my work. I would advise collectors to purchase paintings that will stand the time test of time in quality of materials and workmanship and have enduring value and beauty.”
“I am inspired [by] painting subjects that take you away from the everyday aspects of daily life,” says Sandy Hubler. “It seems that with more social media out now with our phones and computers that we are constantly zeroing in on, it is nice to come home, turn off our phones and view
an image where time seems to slip away if only for a little while.”
In Rosalinda Taymor’s impressionist piece, The Gardner, a girl standing beneath a tree waters the flowers below. Says Taymor of the inspiration behind her artwork, “In the circuit of perceiving while being perceived, there is a blending where one becomes the other. It is the spark that will not stop burning.”