Merton Clivette, Landscape #II, Circa 1925

Description

Artist: Merton Clivette (American, 1868-1931)
Title: Landscape II
Year: Circa 1925
Medium: Gouache
Paper: Watercolor
Size image: 17.35 x 22.65 … more Artist: Merton Clivette (American, 1868-1931)
Title: Landscape II
Year: Circa 1925
Medium: Gouache
Paper: Watercolor
Size image: 17.35 x 22.65 inches
Size paper: 17.35 x 22.65 inches
Signature: Signed lower left by the artist
Condition: Excellent
Frame: Unframed


About the artist.

Clivette was born in Portage, Wisconsin, in 1868 as Merton Clive Cook, the youngest of five (four sons and one daughter). His father was a retired British sea captain, and his mother was an American of French, Scottish and Iroquois Indian stock.
He stayed with a circus for about five years, traveling all over the Western United States, Canada and Mexico. They did shows for the army forts, for railroad workers and on Indian Reservations.
Clivette settled in San Francisco in 1886, when he was offered a job as a reporter and theatrical writer for the San Francisco Call. He met Frederic Remington during this period. He was the first serious artist Clivette had met and he was an inspiration to him.
Clivette had done some drawing and painting on the road during his vaudeville years, he had a natural facility for it, and he had had some formal art training as well. He had had some training in Europe and was aware of the modern art movement in Europe. Later in New York he participated in symposiums and workshops at the Art Students League. Around 1910 he gave up his stage career and began to paint full time. He was about 40 years old and was to continue to paint vigorously and prolifically for the remaining 22 years of his life, His style can be identified with the Expressionist Movement, His subjects include portraits (some quite realistic, others more generalized) Indians and horsemen, laborers, gentlemen and vamps, jungle animals and birds, fish, seascapes and landscapes.
He was an active participant in the art world of New York. He was a member of the Society of Independent Artists. In 1923 he showed at the Ainslee Art Gallery at 677 Fifth Ave., in 1925 at the Spanish Society in Brooklyn and in 1927 he had a solo show at the New Gallery, 600 Madison Ave. That same year there was also a solo show of his work in Paris at the Bernheim-Jeune Gallery, which included a catalogue. In 1929 he exhibited at the Art Center of the Roerich Museum in a group show of work from the collection of George Hellman. In 1930 he was in a show at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, "Painting and Sculpture by Living Americans" which also included the work of Stuart Davis, Arthur Dove, William Glackens, Marsden Hartley, Childe Hassam, George Luks and Mark Tobey and sculptors Gaston Lachaise and William Zorach among others. A description and critical analysis of his work in included in the book by Henry Rankin Poore, Modern Art, Why, What and How.


Solo Exhibitions:
1926 New Gallery
600 Madison Ave. New York, N.Y.
1927 New Gallery
600 Madison Ave. New York, N.Y.
1927 Bernheim-Jeune
83, rue de Faubourg Saint-Honore, Paris, France (catalogue, review)
1928 Milwaukee Journal Gallery of Wisconsin Art
Milwaukee, WI
1928 Speed Memorial Gallery
Louisville, Kentucky
1929 Art Center
65 E. 56th St. New York, N.Y.
"Gustave Nassauer's Collection of Paintings by Clivette"
1930 100 Central Park South
New York, N.Y.
"Collection of Gustave Nassauer" (catalogue, review)
1933 Art Center
65 E. 56th St. New York, N.Y.
1993 Denenberg Fine Arts Gallery
257 Grant Ave. San Francisco, CA
1993 Couturier Gallery
166 N. La Brea Ave. Los Angeles, CA (review)
2004 CaliforniaView Fine Arts
143 N. Santa Cruz Ave. Los Gatos, CA (catalogue)

Group Exhibitions:
1923 Ainslee Art Galleries
677 Fifth Ave. New York, N.Y.
1925 Spanish Society
239 W. 14th St. New York, N.Y.
Two Person Exhibition (review)
1927 Palace of the Legion of Honor
San Francisco, CA (review)
1927 Society of Independent Artists
The Waldorf-Astoria, New York, N.Y.
"11th Annual Exhibition" (catalogue, review)
1928 Ainslee Gallery
Fisher Building, Detroit, MI (catalogue, review)
1929 Brooklyn Museum of Art
Brooklyn, N.Y.
"Exhibition of Watercolor Paintings, Pastels & Drawings by American & European Artists"
(catalogue)
1929 The Anderson Galleries
489 Park Ave. New York, N.Y.
"Spring Salon" (catalogue)
1929 Corona Mundi International Art Center of the Roerich Museum
310 Riverside Dr. New York, N.Y.
"Exhibition of Modern Art from the collection of George Hellman"
1929 The Oakland Gallery (precursor to the Oakland Museum)
Oakland, CA (reviews)
1930 Museum of Modern Art
New York, N.Y.
"Paintings and Sculpture by Living Americans" (catalogue)
1931 Los Angeles Museum
Los Angeles, CA (review)
1932 The Anderson Galleries
30 E 57th St. New York, N.Y.
"Notable Paintings & Drawings Chiefly of the Modern School" (catalogue)
1934 Philadelphia Museum of Art
Philadelphia, PA
1934 Los Angeles Museum
Los Angeles, CA (reviews)
1935 Contemporary Arts
New York, N.Y.
"Collection of Burton Emmett"

Public Collections (currently known)
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, N.Y.
Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, N.Y.
Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
Ackland Art Museum, University of North Carolina, N.C.
Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C. less