Bidspirit auction | Grant Tyson Reynard, etching, ”New

Grant Tyson Reynard, etching, ”New England House” - This original etching by artist Grant Tyson Reynard is titled ”New England House” and is in good condition. The image measures 4.5” x 5” and is signed by the artist in the lower right corner. Winning bids are packaged and shipped by UPS. Shipping estimates are available upon request.Grant Tyson Reynard was born October 20, 1887 to Stephen Blackstone Reynard and Jennie Lynd Bacon Reynard in Grand Island, Nebraska. As a young boy, he worked in his father's music store. He became a skilled pianist and sang solos at many church and town functions. In 1966 he wrote, ”I was provided with a measure of vision and portion of talent which I believe is a God-given desire put into man. Since my parents were musicians, I studied piano as a boy, but soon got the notion, out there in Grand Island, Nebraska, to have a try at putting down (with an eighth grade pencil and any paper handy) my interest in the world around me. I first copied Gibson girls out of the magazines up at the Elks Club where I was supposed to be setting pins in the bowling alley. After other early endeavors on the edges of my examination papers, which, by the way, boosted my stock with the teachers, I would invade the business section of town and, being a shy boy, hide behind posts or crates to draw the merchants and town characters. As I look now at those early drawings, I am amazed at how they bring the characters of that little prairie town to life, right into the here and now. They were drawn with ease and excitement, for I had no idea how difficult it was to make a figure. I sent $60 for a twelve-lesson art course out of Chicago, which promised that I might become famous. It wasnâ€t until later that I found in the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts how tough it was to draw, and how much there was to learn.” In 1906, Grant attended the Chicago Art Institute and Academy of Fine Arts, working days at Marshall Field and studying at the Institute at night. He returned to Grand Island the following year, where he worked in his fatherâ€s music store and as a pianist in dance halls through 1908. After rebuilding his savings, he returned to the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts in 1909 to complete his education. Reynard moved to Leonia, New Jersey in 1914 to become a free-lance illustrator, attending the Harvey Dunn School of Illustration. It was here that he met and became lifelong friends with Dunn, Charles H. Chapman, Frank Street, John Steuart Curry and Harry Wickey - all prominent artists. Eventually, I came east to Leonia, here in New Jersey, and joined a summer art class in illustration taught by Harvey Dunn who hailed from South Dakota. Sensing that I was a western lone wolf, he would send me out from the studio and the other hard workers, with instructions to bring back drawings of people and places I could find up toward Fort Lee on the Palisades. I salute him for his good sense in not insisting that I follow him, and for helping me later to contact the magazines where my illustrations enabled me to make a living and to marry my Gwen who presented me in due time with two lovely young lady models. In those early days I met Harry Wickey who gave me my first insight and appreciation of Daumier, Goya, Rembrandt and the great line of draftsmen-painters that he admired and studied. I found Wickey a great and generous artist and friend whose counsel and inspiration continue to serve me to this day. We met Mahonri Young who was living in Leonia and we felt that his knowledge of media and just about everything connected with art was endless. In their various ways, these artist friends were most helpful and with their encouragement I began to raise my sights toward fields other than illustration where I might paint just the things I wanted in the way I wanted. In those days of the 1920s, what a group of men there was both painting and doing illustration: Sloan, Glackens, Shinn, and Bellows, to name only a few. In 1915, Grant became Art Editor for Redbook Magazine in Chicago. He continued creating illustrations for Redbook until 1924. Between 1924 and 1929, he was active as an illustrator for The Saturday Evening Post (Reynard completed nearly 50 pieces for the Post), Country Gentleman, Ladies' Home Journal, Cosmopolitan, Harper's Bazaar, Hearst's International Magazine, Collier's, McCall's, Woman's Home Companion, Liberty, and Scribner's Magazine. Most of these illustrations were created in the charcoal medium. In 1928 Grant spent his first of eight summers at the MacDowell Colony, Peterborough, New Hampshire. It was here that he met Willa Cather. Reynard recalled, ”Willa Cather, the distinguished writer and a fellow Nebraskan, came to my studio one afternoon. On viewing my paintings - I had been doing a series of large scale allegorical canvases - she gave me some advice I never forgot.” Cather told Reynard that, in her early career as an author in New York, she had written stories based on imagination.