Bidspirit auction | Reynolds Beal ”South Roundabout New

Reynolds Beal ”South Roundabout New York” Painting - Reynolds Beal (American, 1866-1951). Oil on canvas impressionist maritime painting titled ”South Roundabout, New York, ” 1914. Depicting a bustling, active river waterway in New York nestled beneath prominent, rolling mountains. Featuring multiple heavy work barges and tugs populated with figures along the center. A large sailboat sits docked along a wooden pier, its towering wooden mast framing the right side of the canvas. Lush, green, densely forested hills and mountains rise steeply behind the waterfront, fading into softer blue and purple atmospheric tones in the distant background. Signed and dated along the lower right. Provenance: Vose Galleries, Boston; Flanders Contemporary Art, Minneapolis, MN, December 15, 1987; The Distinguished Collection of Leo & Doris Hodroff. Lot Essay: Born in New York City, Reynolds Beal initially set aside his artistic ambitions to study naval architecture at Cornell University. Three years after graduating in 1887, he returned to his true passion, enrolling briefly at the Art Students League before continuing his studies under William Merritt Chase at the Shinnecock School on Long Island. He later traveled extensively throughout Europe, sketching in Paris, Spain, and North Africa, before returning to New York to establish his own studio. Thanks to the success of their father's business, Beal and his younger brother, Gifford Beal, also a highly respected painter, were able to devote themselves entirely to art while traveling widely throughout their lives. Together they explored the waterways of Nicaragua and Costa Rica, the Caribbean, the American North and West, the Far East, and Europe. During many of his journeys between 1900 and 1920, Reynolds Beal was accompanied by fellow American Impressionists including Childe Hassam, Ernest Lawson, Hermann Dudley Murphy, and Henry Ward Ranger. An avid sailor, Beal found endless inspiration along the New England coastline, which became his favorite subject. ”South Roundabout, New York” beautifully reflects both his background in naval architecture and his lifelong fascination with maritime scenes. Rather than blending his paint into smooth passages, Beal applied vibrant, visible strokes of pure color side by side to evoke the shimmering reflections of light on the water, the texture of the verdant hillsides, and the movement of clouds across the pale blue sky. These dense, rhythmic, mosaic-like brushstrokes are hallmarks of the American Impressionist style. Throughout his career, Beal was an active member of the American art community. He helped found both the Society of Independent Artists and the New Society of Artists, a group of approximately fifty leading painters that included Childe Hassam, Maurice Prendergast, and John Sloan. In 1909, he was elected an Associate Member of the National Academy of Design, and a decade later he was among a select group of American artists invited to exhibit at the Luxembourg Museum in Paris. Today, his work is represented in numerous museum collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Unframed; height: 29 in x width: 36 in. Framed; height: 36 1/2 in x width: 43 in x depth: 2 1/4 in. Condition: The painting is in good condition. The painting has been relined. There are no visible areas of restoration under UV. The paint layer is stable with no visible cracks.