WALTER LAUNT PALMER (1854-1932)

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WALTER LAUNT PALMER (1854-1932) Quiet Morning, Venice Oil on canvas 6 1/4 x 8 inches Dated July 1885, upper left PROVENANCE: Estate of the Artist, by descent to the Kelly family, CA Walter Launt Palmer was active between 1872 and 1932, a period when American artists were confronted with a choice of working in the traditional academic mode, which valued high levels of detail and finish, or of adopting the modern, impasto-heavy impressionist style emerging in France. Palmer experimented with both techniques, as well as with a variety of media, including oil, watercolor, pastel, and mixed media, to produce the domestic interiors, Venetian scenes, and Winter landscapes for which he is known. Born in Albany, New York in 1854 to American neoclassical sculptor Erastus Dow Palmer, the young Palmer was raised in an artistic environment. Hudson River School painters Frederic E. Church (1826‒1900), John F. Kensett (1816‒1872), and Jervis McEntee (1828‒1891) frequented his home. Palmer attended the Albany Boys School, where he became friends with future figurative painter Will Low. The two boys often spent their afternoons making pictures rather than playing in the streets, much to Erastus' liking. In addition to drawing and painting, Palmer also showed talents for writing and playing the cello. Between 1870 and 1872, he studied landscape painting with Church at Olana. At the end of this training period, when he was only eighteen years old, one of Palmer's paintings was accepted to the National Academy of Design annual exhibition. He subsequently sought additional artistic education in Europe, visiting the Rome studios of Tonalist painter George Inness (1825‒1894) and Symbolist painter Elihu Vedder (1836‒1923) in 1873, and studying in Paris under academic figure painter Emile Auguste Carolus-Duran in 1874 and 1876. Soon after he returned to New York in 1878, Palmer rented a studio with Church in the famous Tenth Street Studio Building and began producing detailed domestic interiors, which were highly sought after by New York's elite. In 1881, Palmer set off for Europe to paint the many lavish interiors to be found there. He also took this opportunity to visit Venice, where he remained for two months, sketching, painting, and photographing views of Piazza San Marco and the Grand Canal, which soon became one of his favorite subjects. It is in his Venice pictures that his artistic

experimentation is most evident, with certain ones bearing the sleek realism of the academic mode, and others exploiting the more painterly qualities of the Impressionist style. After 1881, Palmer relocated to Albany, where he remained until his death. He began painting snow scenes, which, in their whiteness, served as an ideal platform for exploring the effects of color and light, including the use of blue to define the shadows. In 1887, Palmer was awarded the National Academy's Second Hallgarten Prize for his painting January, thereby placing winter landscapes among his most popular subjects. Palmer went on to receive gold medals from the Philadelphia and Boston Art Clubs, as well as prizes from the American Watercolor Society and the Paris Exposition of 1900. Palmer's later life was divided between Albany and further travel in Europe, the Far East, and Mexico. In July 1902, Palmer found himself in Venice for a second time after visiting Gibraltar, Tangiers, Algeciras, Granada, and Seville with his wife. Palmer continued to produce his popular Venetian scenes especially between 1881 and 1904 leading one critic to remark: His canals, churches, and boats exhibit a quality of atmosphere, a sensitive blending of that rare tone given by age and decay, with the noon day light or the evening mist. He has not given us the Venice of Turner, nor that of Ziem, and yet it fails not, it is worth living with and dreaming about. 1 Today, Palmer's works can be found at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Albany Institute of History and Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.

1 Theodore Purdy, “Walter Palmer's Landscapes,” Town and Country (September 28, 1901).