Product Description
Harold Christopher Davies, “Pacific seascape”, Oil on canvas c. 1915
HAROLD CHRISTOPHER DAVIES (1891 – 1976) USA
Pacific seascape c.1915
Oil on canvas
Marks: HHG #4010, Hoover Gallery, 1681 Folson Street, San Francisco, CA 94103 (on wooden stretcher), the estate mark of the Harold Christopher Davies estate is on the reverse of the canvas
Exhibited: Hoover Gallery, San Francisco, CA, 1975
For more information: Harold Christopher Davies 1891-1976: A Retrospective Exhibition (Stockton, CA: The Haggin Museum, 1982); Susan Landauer: The San Francisco School of Abstract Expressionism (Berkeley/Los Angeles, CA and London, UK: University of California Press, Laguna Beach, CA: Laguna Art Museum, 1996)p. 8;Art in the San Francisco Bay Area 1945-1980: An Illustrated History (Berkeley, CA: University California Press, 1985)
H: 16” x W: 20”
Framed: H: 27 11/16” x W: 23 5/8”
Born in Seattle, WA on May 26, 1891, the Davies family moved to Cherrydale, VA when Harold was an infant. Davies began his formal art education at the age of fourteen, enrolling in the Corcoran Art Institute in Washington, D.C. Later he continued his studies at the San Francisco Institute of Art.
The talent of Harold Christopher Davies was evident in his early California Impressionist landscapes such as this Pacific Ocean seascape which demonstrates his remarkable use of color and the bravura of his brushstrokes. An Abstract Expressionist, his later works are similar to those of De Kooning and Hans Hofmann. Harold Christopher Davies was a member of the Oakland Art League, the San Francisco Art Association and the Huntsville (Ala.) Art Association.
After living in a variety of cities around the United States, Davies moved to Inverness, California in 1969 where he was free to devote all his time to his art.
Exhibitions:
San Francisco Art Association, 1921-1931
Oakland Art Gallery, 1931
Birmingham Museum, 1951
Southampton Museum, 1959
University of Long Island Museum, 1964
Parrish Art Museum, 1964, 1966, 1967
Hoover Gallery (San Francisco), 1975
Fresno Art Center, 1976 (Solo)
Haggin Museum, 1982
Huntsville Museum, 1982
Harold Christopher Davies, “Pacific seascape”, Oil on canvas c. 1915
CHARLES W. HESS (1921-1998) USA
Abstraction 1948
Resin-oil on plexiglas, sheet aluminum
Signed: CH (in a circle)
Exhibited: Solo Exhibition, Modernism, San Francisco, CA, 1981; Charles Hess and Leta English Hess: Joint Retrospective, University Art Gallery, University of California, Riverside, October 1 – November 10, 1985; Charles Hess: Neoplastic Works, Modernism, Art of the 20th Century, San Francisco, CA; June 6 – 29, 1991.
Painting illustrated: “On Transparency and Reflection,”
The Structurist No. 27/28, 1987/1988.
Painting H: 12” x W: 12” x D: 1”
Framed H: 22” x W: 22” x D: 1 1/2”
Price: $58,000
Born in 1921 in Long Beach, California, Charles Hess studied painting at UCLA, University of Chicago and University of California, Berkeley. In 1962 he joined the faculty of San Francisco State University where he taught until 1983. Hess’s paintings have been shown in numerous solo and group exhibitions including shows at the Pasadena Art Museum, the Corcoran Gallery of Art and the Art Institute of Chicago where his work is also in the permanent collection.
Working in the neo-plasticist style for over thirty years, Hess’s work explored the three-dimensional relationship between the basic elements of painting: color, form, and space. Abstraction is one of the few works to survive from this period; most pieces from this period were lost due to the 1991 fire in the Oakland, CA hills.
***Charles and Leta English Hess papers, 1895-1987 can be found at the Smithsonian Archives of American Art.
Included are ten letters from Stanton Macdonald-Wright to Hess (1954-1965) relating to his views of the relationship between patrons and artists, the 1956 Paris art scene, contemporary art criticism, the art market, and his break with the Duveen Graham Gallery.