American Art and Pennsylvania Impressionists

This present work will be included in the Kodner Gallery Art Research Project on the artist Oscar Edmund Berninghaus.

Provenance:

Pauline Gillespie Townsend, Wichita, Kansas.

Private Collection, by descent.

Sotheby's, New York, Sale of March 28, 2018, Lot 161.

Acquired directly from the above sale.

Private Collection, New York.

Lot Note:

A native of St. Louis, Missouri, Oscar Berninghaus first visited Taos in 1899 and returned frequently over the next several decades. He became a founding member of the Taos Society of Artists in 1915 and permanently settled there in 1925 until his death in 1952. Painted in 1949, Autumn Aspen Forest serves as a late-career nod to the cherished scenery that lured him to the Southwest initially.

Berninghaus was a keen observer of the interplay of sunlight and shade on the landscape. In Autumn Aspen Forest, the yellow green hues of the treetops, a result of the sun shining on the changing leaves, contrast with the dimmer, cross-hatched forest floor. From there, the towering tree trunks take the viewer’s gaze on a graceful but steep ascent towards the canopy. The forward path cutting through the trees is also skyward, a further invitation to look up and take in the peak in the background, emerging within the golden crown of the foliage.

Berninghaus believed in extracting a fundamentally American meaning from local splendor. In celebrating the grandiose forests and mountains of the Southwest, the artist was also stating the limitless beauty and potential of the nation.