2017 Coeur d’Alene Art Auction / Lot 71
VERSO
Provenance listed
According to Johnson biographer Harold McCracken, “He [Johnson] was very particular about everything he did. That is why his paintings are so consistently good. But he was especially particular when he painted a nocturne. At this period in his career these extraordinary scenes were already the most sought after, as they still are today; for they are unquestionably the ultimate in this artist’s work. He had spent a great deal of time in study and experimenting to accomplish the simulation of daylight colors under moonlight and starlight; and he was continually endeavoring to carry this to a higher state of perfection. In the effort to develop something that was strictly his own, he went beyond the mixing of the colors of the paints he used. He also had his own special preparation for processing the white underpainting of the canvas before starting the overpainting of a nocturne.”
PROVENANCE
The Artist, commissioned by
Ray Lester Skofield, Santa Barbara, CA
Hobart Oliver Skofield (his son), by descent
Ermanie Skofield Reynolds, by descent
Garth Hobart Reynolds, by descent
[The Coeur d’Alene Art Auction 2008, lot 211]
Private Collection, OR 2008