Jersey Shore Impressionists
Jersey Shore Impressionists
The Fascination of Sun and Sea 1880-1940
Roy Pedersen
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Water and light have seduced artists through the years and the quality of these elements at the New Jersey Shore continues to attract artists to this day. Between the late 1800s and 1940, an inspired group of painters were drawn to the New Jersey coastline, forming communities of artists.
Jersey Shore Impressionists breaks new ground in the history of American art by recognizing the distinct influence of New Jersey and its Shore on impressionist era American painters. This book establishes — for the first time — a category of impressionist American painters who focused on or were profoundly influenced by the landscapes and seascapes of this region — from Sandy Hook and Highlands to Barnegat Bay to Cape May.
“Not since 1964, and only once before that in 1938, has there been published a book on painters in New Jersey,” says the book’s author, Roy Pedersen. “Never until now has there appeared a survey of the regional impressionist painters of New Jersey. This book and the accompanying exhibition for the first time celebrate these unrecognized works into the history of New Jersey and American art.”
Jersey Shore Impressionists is published in conjunction with a 2013 exhibition at the Morven Museum & Garden in Princeton, NJ. Titled “Coastal Impressions: Painters of the Jersey Shore, 1880-1940” the exhibition examines how the New Jersey Shore was home to artist colonies whose output rivaled that of the better-known colonies of Old Lyme and Cos Cob, Connecticut, and Bucks County, Pennsylvania.
In a Foreword, Richard J. Boyle, former director of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, describes the foundation of art colonies, and how they traveled from their origins in mid-nineteenth century France to the plein air attraction of the Jersey Shore's “special light.”
The first art colony — at Manasquan — forms around 1880 as young artists fresh from European training in Germany, France and Italy begin to arrive, and the book includes work from these artists: Will Hicok Low, Theodore Robinson, Albert Grantley Reinhart, Charles Freeman and Caroline Coventry Haynes. The next generation — Edward Boulton, Ida Wells Stroud, Julius Golz — trained in America, join and form new colonies to paint the unique light and activities of the Shore.
The passionate works created by these artists stands as an important, yet unsung, chapter of American Impressionism and is celebrated in this book, establishing the important contribution to American art in general, and New Jersey’s cultural heritage in particular.
Pages: 127
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Foreword by Richard Boyle
Dimensions: 10” x 12.25” x 0.63"
Review
Review
A Fresh Look at Forgotten Jersey Shore Art
(published in The Beachcomber)
Lambertville gallery-owner Roy Pedersen grew up by the sea in Point Pleasant Beach. A child of the shore, he had many adventures in his small boat, "looking for turtles and sea horses and fish among the channels and exploring through the marshes." This childhood passion for the seashore stayed with him and led to his collecting and studying New Jersey Impressionist paintings, and the first exhibition of them in 1997.
Now, in a culmination of his passion, Pedersen's has written Jersey Shore Impressionists: The Fascination of Sun and Sea 1880-1940 (Down the Shore Publishing). The book breaks new ground in the history of American art by recognizing the distinct influence of the New Jersey Shore on these painters of the impressionist era and into the early 20th century. The book establishes a category of painters who focused on and were influenced by the water and light from Sandy Hook to Cape May.
Several years after he opened the gallery Pedersen said, "For whatever reason, there has never been any real examination and consideration of New Jersey painters, and particularly the Jersey Shore painters ... The Bucks County impressionists are in such demand I thought there must be impressionists who painted down at the Shore." And he began to find pockets of them. "Because I grew up at the shore I knew of some of the painters who had worked there."
In 1941, the Newark Evening News wrote: "Did you know that the Jersey Shore section is just one big art colony? If you want to visit an art colony this summer, you need not go as far as Cape Cod, or even as far as New Hope, Pa - just turn shoreward and there you are."
Dozens of painters - some known, many not - are included in Jersey Shore Impressionists: Will Hicok Low, Thomas Eakins, Albert Grantley Reinhart, Ida Wells Stroud, Clara Stroud, George Bellows, Carl Buergerniss, Robert Henri, Paul Gill and Oscar Julius are a few. The majority of the paintings are images from the Brielle, Manasquan and Point Pleasant shore area.
Although we are told very little about him, three paintings of local interest by Oscar Julius are at the front of the book: a watercolor of clammers working the bay, Barnegat Inlet with the Lighthouse in the background and a powerful image of lobster fisherman pulling in a pot, (although this might have been painted in Maine, as Julius worked there also). Julius had a gallery on Fifth St. in Barnegat Light in 1942.
The Strouds are favorites of mine. Pedersen has an extensive chapter on Ida and Clara, mother and daughter, enhanced by photographs and anecdotes - these two painters deserve a book of their own. Ida grew up in New Orleans, which offered women opportunities not always found elsewhere in the 1880s. She moved north after her husband died, eventually settled in Point Pleasant where she and her daughter created oils, watercolors, ceramics and illustrations.
Amos Birdsall Jr., a name known around Barnegat Bay since the 18th century, is represented with only one painting, and that is the lovely sailboat on the cover, painted in 1890. Birdsall was self-taught, but when only 15 years old, the New Jersey Courier described him as an "artist of nautical subjects".
Images throughout the book will be familiar to shore-lovers: sailboats at work and play in "Gathering Salt Hay" (page 86), sailboats shrouded in mist in "Going for a Sail" (page 85), pound boats plowing through the surf in Beached" (page 98) and "Pound Boat" (page 112), the beach at dawn in "Ocean Sunrise" (page 81) and under bright sun ("Beach at Atlantic City" page 60), shimmering creeks and bays Grey Day at Sandy Hook" (page 45).
Pedersen adds to the visual pleasure of the paintings with his comments and the back-stories of the various artists. The book is almost as much a pleasure as the paintings within it - with the fine aesthetic touch that Down the Shore Publishing gives their finest books.
Jersey Shore Impressionists should be on your must-have list of shore and art books. It transcends New Jersey's cultural heritage and is an important contribution to American Art in general.
Awards
Awards
Benjamin Franklin National Book Awards winner:
Silver Awards — both Regional, and Cover Design categories
