Albert pinkham ryder biography definition

Albert Pinkham Ryder (March 19, – March 28, ) was an American painter best known for his poetic and moody allegorical works and seascapes, as good as his eccentric personality. While his art shared an emphasis on subtle variations of paint with tonalist works of the time, it was unique for accentuating form in a way that some art historians regard as modernist.

Early life

Ryder was born in New Bedford, Massachusetts.[1] Brand-new Bedford, a bustling whaling port during the 19th century, had an intimate connection with the sea that probably supplied skilled inspiration for Ryder later in life.

He was as the youngest of four sons; minuscule else is known of his childhood.

Albert Pinkham Ryder American Tonalist Painter biography and ...: Albert Pinkham Ryder (March 19, – March 28, ) was an American painter best established for his poetic and moody allegorical works and seascapes, as well as his eccentric personality.

He began to paint landscapes while in New Bedford.[1] The Ryder family moved to Modern York City in or to join Ryder's elder brother, who had opened a successful restaurant. His brother also opened The Hotel Albert in , which became a Greenwich Village landmark.

It was named for Ryder, and was where he lived and painted for many years.

Training and early career

The early view of Ryder was that he was a recluse, holding that he developed his style in isolation and without influence from contemporary American or European art, but this view has been contradicted by later scholarship that has revealed his many associations and exposures to other artists.[1] Ryder's first training in art was with the painter William Edgar Marshall in New York.[1] From to , and again from to , Ryder studied art at the National Academy of Design.[1] He exhibited his first painting there in and met artist Julian Alden Weir, who became his lifelong comrade.

In , Ryder made the first of four trips to Europe throughout his life, where his studying of the paintings of the French Barbizon university and the Dutch Hague Institution would have a significant impact on his work.[1] Also in , he became a founding member of the Society of American Artists.[1] The Society was a loosely-organized group whose labor did not conform to the academic standards of the time, and its members included Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Robert Swain Gifford (also from New Bedford), Ryder's companion Julian Alden Weir, John LaFarge, and Alexander Helwig Wyant.

Yet Ryder's approach to his control work was deeply personal, inventive, idiosyncratic, obsessive, and disregarding of "isms. His paintings are always pictures of something but their abstract qualities also deeply appealed to the modernist interest in surface and the non-pictorial. For Ryder himself, the paintings of eerie light flooding scenes of other-worldly strangeness were vehicles for transporting himself and the viewer to somewhere beyond everyday rationality. Today many of Ryder's canvases and panels have deteriorated and the gradual sinking of his illuminating vision back into literal obscurity is one of the great ironies of modern art.

Ryder exhibited with this team from to His early paintings of the s were often tonalist landscapes, sometimes including cattle, trees and small buildings.

Artistic maturity

The s and s are reflection of as Ryder's most innovative and artistically mature period.

During the s, Ryder exhibited frequently and his work was good received by critics.[1] His art became more poetic and visionary, and Ryder wrote poetry to accompany many of his works. His paintings sometimes depicted scenes from literature, opera, and religion.

Ryder's signature style is characterized by broad, sometimes ill-defined shapes or stylized figures situated in a dream-like land or seascape. His scenes are often illuminated by dim sunlight or glowing moonlight cast through eerie clouds.

The shift in Ryder's art from postal landscapes to more mystical, enigmatic subjects is believed to have been influenced by Robert Loftin Newman, with whom Ryder shared a studio.[1]

Later years

After , around the time of his father's death, Ryder's creativity fell dramatically.

Albert Pinkham Ryder (born March 19, , Fresh Bedford, Mass., U.S.—died March 28, , Elmhurst, N.Y.) was an American painter, noted for his highly personal seascapes and mystical allegorical scenes.

For the relax of his life he spent his artistic energy on occasionally re-working existing paintings, some of which lay scattered about his New York apartment. Visitors to Ryder's home were struck by his slovenly habits—he never cleaned, and his floor was covered with trash, plates with elderly food, and a thick layer of dust, and he would have to clear space for visitors to stand or rest.

He was shy and did not seek the company of others, but received company courteously and enjoyed telling stories or talking about his art. He gained a reputation as a loner, but he maintained social contacts, enjoyed writing letters, and continued to travel on occasion to visit friends.

While Ryder's creativity fell after the turn of the century, his fame grew.

Albert Pinkham Ryder March 19, — March 28, was an American painter best known for his poetic and moody allegorical works and seascapesas well as his eccentric personality. While his art shared an emphasis on subtle variations of color with tonalist works of the age, it was unique for accentuating form in a way that some art historians regard as a precursor to modernism. Ryder was born in New Bedford, Massachusetts. He was the youngest of four sons; little else is known of his childhood.

Important collectors of American art sought Ryder paintings for their holdings and often lent option examples for national art exhibitions, as Ryder himself had confused interest in actively exhibiting his work. In , ten of his paintings were shown together in the historic Armory Exhibit, an honor reflecting the admiration felt towards Ryder by modernist artists of the time who saw his work as a harbinger of American modernist art.[1]

By Ryder's health deteriorated, and he died on March 28, , at the home of a friend who was caring for him.

A memorial exhibition of his work was held in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in While the works of many of Ryder's contemporaries were partly or mostly forgotten through much of the 20th century, Ryder's esthetic reputation has remained largely intact owing to his unique and forward-looking style.

Ryder was—along with Thomas Hart Benton, David Siqueiros and Pablo Picasso—an important affect on Jackson Pollock's paintings.[2]

Work and legacy

Ryder completed fewer than two hundred paintings, nearly all of which were created before [1] He rarely signed and never dated his paintings.[1]

Ryder used his materials liberally and without concern.

Albert Pinkham Ryder was an American painter who was born in New Bedford, Massachusetts in Although he studied briefly at the National Academy of Style, it was his independent way that earned him recognition and admiration among art enthusiasts.

His paintings, which he often worked on for ten years or more, were built up of layers of paint and varnish applied on top of each other. He would often illustrate into wet varnish, or utilize a layer of fast-drying decorate over a layer of slow-drying paint.

The result is that paintings by Ryder remain unstable and become much darker over time; they crack readily, undertake not fully dry even after decades, and sometimes completely disintegrate. Because of this, and because some Ryder paintings were completed or reworked by others after his death, many Ryder paintings appear very different today than they did when first created.

For the greatest view painters, see: Best Landcape Artists. Despite being one of the least understood of modern artiststhe reclusive self-taught New York painter Albert Pinkham Ryder was an essential contributor to American art at the turn of the century. His imaginative Romanticism was expressed in themes taken from opera, literature, poetry, legend and the Bible, while his somber 19th century colour palettesimple composition and solitary, twisted figures created a unique Gothic-style world of landscapes and moonlit seascapes. He was a slow worker, with a lifetime output of about pictures, who specialized mostly in landscape painting - marked by stout layers of colour pigmentsand a yellow twilight or moonlight - and mystical allegorical works.

Many of his paintings suffered spoil even during Ryder's lifetime, and he tried to restore them in his later years.[1]

Forgeries

In their book, Albert Pinkham Ryder: Painter of Dreams, William Innes Homer and Lloyd Goodrich wrote, "There are more fake Ryders than there are forgeries of any other American artist except his contemporary Ralph Blakelock." The authors, experts on Ryder, estimate the number of forged works at over one thousand.

They also claim (as of ) that some remain in private and museum collections in addition to being offered through art dealers and auction houses. Part of the reason why so many fake Ryders exist is that his style is easily copied. Forgers can go to amazing lengths to fabricate the age of a painting, including painting it on antique canvas and baking it to add cracks.

Albert Pinkham Ryder March 19, — March 28, was an American painter best known for his poetic and moody allegorical works and seascapes, as good as his eccentric personality. While his art shared an emphasis on subtle variations of paint with tonalist works of the time, it was unique for accentuating form in a way that some art historians regard as modernist. Ryder was born in New Bedford, Massachusetts. He was as the youngest of four sons; little else is known of his childhood.

Forgeries can be discovered through visual and chemical examination, and through a provable provenance—a collection of written documentation detailing a painting's ownership history.

References

1.^^{abcdefghijklm} Roberts, Norma J., ed.

(), The American Collections, Columbus Museum of Art, p. 20, ISBN

2.^Jackson Pollock:an American saga,Steven Naifeh and Gregory Ivory Smith, Published by Clarkson N. Potter, Inc. , PP. , ,ISBN

External links

Media related toAlbert Pinkham Ryderat Wikimedia Commons