Description: This is a lovely and Fine Antique OId Early California Plein Air Landscape Painting, Watercolor on Paper, by the early 20th century California Impressionist painter, Richard Kruger (1875 - 1965.) This artwork depicts a bucolic sylvan forested landscape scene in Los Angeles County, California. This piece displays finely painted trees with autumnal gold and orange hued foliage, a small calm pond in the foreground, and a delicately rendered tree line, which is visible in the far distance. Signed and dated in the lower left corner: "Richard Kruger 1910." Approximately 29 3/8 x 35 5/8 x 3 inches (including frame.) Actual visible artwork is approximately 21 3/8 x 27 3/8 inches. Good condition for over a century of age and storage, with moderate scuffing, scratches, edge wear, and material loss to the original period early 20th century ornate gilded wood and gesso frame (please see photos carefully.) Acquired from an old estate collection in Pasadena, California. Due to the large size and delicacy of this very old piece, S&H costs will be unavoidably high. However, Free Local Pickup is also an option. If you like what you see, I encourage you to make an Offer. Please check out my other listings for more wonderful and unique artworks! About the Artist: Richard Kruger Born: 1875 - Zittau, GermanyDied: 1965Known for: Landscape, coastal view and desert paintingName variants: Richard Krueger Richard Kruger (1875 - 1965) was active/lived in California, New York / Germany. Richard Kruger is known for Landscape, coastal view and desert painting. Richard Kruger 1875- 1965Landscape painter Richard Kruger was born of American parents in Zittau, Germany, near the Polish border in 1875, although some references on the artist show his birth date as 1880 or 1885. Some scholars also identify his birth place as Poland or Russia. However most commentators agree that he was initially trained as a physician before he entered art school at the Dresden Academy of Fine Art where a Richard Kruger was recorded as studying with academic masters including Richard Tuetter and Alois Hans Schram whose career ended in 1919.In 1895, US immigration records for the year record that Kruger first emigrated to New York City. Within the year he decided to head to the American West after hearing about it and seeing its great landscape vistas and the heterogeneity of its terrain represented in paintings in the showrooms of several New York galleries and critically praised in the major newspapers of New York City.Recorded paintings in the collection of the Santa Fe Railroad, including views of the Grand Canyon and the Santa Cruz sand dunes, see Kruger in picturesque locations in Arizona and throughout California where he developed a muscular modernist realism of broad brushstrokes and a dramatic palette. The Santa Fe and its successor railroads created the very first corporate art collection in the United States as a method for advertising the beauty and wonders of the American West through lithographs and printed advertising materials based on the original oil paintings of a number of significant American artists. The bulk of this collection including work by Kruger may be found in the Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) Museum in Fort Worth, Texas where over 700 original oil paintings anchor this seminal collection of the art of the American West.Edan Hughes in Art In California traces Kruger to Los Angeles in 1907, where he established a studio in the Majestic Building during a ten year period in the city. Then he moved on to San Francisco in 1918 where city directories identify him as the founder and proprietor of an art studio on Stockton Street which included his decorating and craft shop where he designed furniture and made metalware objects. Hughes also reports that Kruger was back on the continent in France and Germany in 1926, returning to California in 1928, when Hughes and the public record lose track of the artist and entrepreneur for 40 years until Kruger reappears as the subject in a number of brief and general Obituaries in San Francisco and Los Angeles.Kruger also appears briefly in seven standard works on American painters referenced by Hughes in his book on California artists and online at askART. Recent research has discovered Kruger in more recent updated editions of the California Death Index and the Social Security Death Index where the exact birth date of February 12, 1875 and his date of death, April 17, 1965, in Los Angeles, are now included in the record with new information on Krugerβs wife, Lydia, who lived in the Los Angeles area until her death in 1980 at the age of 103 years. Ongoing research continues on Richard Kruger, an interesting and influential early modernist chronicler of California and the American West.Source/Submitted by: Gary R. Libby art historian and author Born in Germany to American parents, Richard Kruger studied there to become a physician, but changing his mind, became a painting student of Richard Tuettner. Seeking adventure, he emigrated at age 20 to New York City and from there, on foot, he headed West. His primary interest was landscape painting and going through the desert of Arizona and southeastern California, he did much sketching of the desert.He later returned to Arizona for more painting subjects, which included scenes of the Grand Canyon. His paintings of the Canyon and the Santa Cruz Sand Dunes are in the Santa Fe Railroad Collection. Of his work, Edan Hughes wrote: "His paintings have a romantic, Old World quality to them. Often working at sunrise or sunset, his subjects include desert, marines, coastals, landscapes, the Golden Gate and scenes around the San Francisco Bay Area." (646)In 1907, he arrived in Los Angeles, and in 1918 moved to San Francisco, and established a studio on Stockton Street where, in addition to painting, he made chests and metalware and did interior design. He also had a thriving business as an interior decorator and renovator of homes.In 1926, he returned to Europe for two years, spending time in Germany and France, and then he returned to California. Little is known about him from that time.Sources:Edan Hughes, Artists in California, 1786-1940
Price: 1350 USD
Location: Orange, California
End Time: 2024-09-04T23:02:20.000Z
Shipping Cost: 45 USD
Product Images
Item Specifics
All returns accepted: ReturnsNotAccepted
Artist: Richard Kruger
Unit of Sale: Single Piece
Signed By: Richard Kruger
Size: Large
Signed: Yes
Period: Early 20th Century (1900-1920)
Material: Paper, Watercolor
Region of Origin: California, USA
Framing: Framed
Subject: Botanical, Flowers, Forest, Landscape, Plants, Seasons, States & Counties, Tree
Type: Painting
Year of Production: 1910
Original/Licensed Reproduction: Original
Item Height: 29 3/8 in
Theme: Americana, Art, Continents & Countries, Exhibitions, Floral, Nature, Western
Style: Americana, Impressionism, Tonalism, Plein Air
Features: One of a Kind (OOAK)
Production Technique: Watercolor Painting
Country/Region of Manufacture: United States
Item Width: 35 5/8 in
Handmade: Yes
Time Period Produced: 1900-1924