1951.19 Alexander Bower, The First Spring Fog | DMA Staging Content Management System

GENERAL DESCRIPTION

By 1914, Alexander Bower was living and working on the Northern Atlantic Coast, mainly on the islands in Casco Bay in the Gulf of Maine. In 1921, the American Impressionist purchased a piece of coastal property near Delano Park, Maine, where he would build a home and studio on the coast of Cape Elizabeth—a primary subject in his oeuvre. As Bower retreated to the coast and removed himself from the city centers where he was raised and educated—New York and Philadelphia, respectively—his painting came to embody the surface elements of American Impressionism, which captured the beauty of familiar subjects with a delicate mixture of light and color. Here, hurried waves crash against a rocky coastline, flanked by a stagnant, dense fog and hills peppered with mounds of melting snow. Bower’s application of paint, alternating thick and broad brushstrokes with narrow and smoothed ones, seamlessly juxtapose and mediate earth, sea, and sky.

Excerpt from

Erin Piñon, DMA label copy, 2016.

NOTES

n.d. (Changed search dates to artist's life dates.)

Object File Reviewed

Similar to Bruce Crane, Lingering WInter 1920.1

Cannot find any reliable sources online

DMA library only has a book listed with him as coauthor (Charles Lewis Fox)

Alexander Bower was one of first residents of Arden, Delaware, an experimental community founded by the sculptor Frank Stephens. Based in part on Henry George's economical/social theory that whatever is derived from the land should be shared by the whole, etc. "single-tax" theory. Was going to make into a Fun Fact but realized it required too much explanation. JR

Catalogue essays

Artist/designers

Bower, Alexander (American, 1875-1952)

Cultures

Geography

Process/materials

Oil on canvas

Historical periods

Individuals

Subject terms

RELATED OBJECTS

PROVENANCE

From 1951: Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, bequest of Joel T. Howard [1]

[1] The name of the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, founded in 1933, was changed to the Dallas Museum of Art in 1983.

AUDIO ASSETS

VIDEO ASSETS

IMAGE ASSETS

WEB RESOURCES

ARCHIVAL RESOURCES

FUN FACTS

TEACHING IDEAS

RULES

Apply to objects where number equals 1951.19

General Description

By 1914, Alexander Bower was living and working on the Northern Atlantic Coast, mainly on the islands in Casco Bay in the Gulf of Maine. In 1921, the American Impressionist purchased a piece of coastal property near Delano Park, Maine, where he would build a home and studio on the coast of Cape Elizabeth—a primary subject in his oeuvre. As Bower retreated to the coast and removed himself from the city centers where he was raised and educated—New York and Philadelphia, respectively—his painting came to embody the surface elements of American Impressionism, which captured the beauty of familiar subjects with a delicate mixture of light and color. Here, hurried waves crash against a rocky coastline, flanked by a stagnant, dense fog and hills peppered with mounds of melting snow. Bower’s application of paint, alternating thick and broad brushstrokes with narrow and smoothed ones, seamlessly juxtapose and mediate earth, sea, and sky.