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Newsstand Rate $1.75 INDEXES ONPAGES 36 & 37

June 19, 2015

Published by The Bee Publishing Company, Newtown, Connecticut

Maurer’s sense of abstraction and patterning is apparent in his earlyFauve works, like “Still Life,” circa 1910. A riot of discordant colors andspatial relationships, it brings to mind Matisse’s comments in a 1908essay that paintings are about the “art of arranging in a decorativemanner the various elements at the painter’s disposal for the expres-sion of his feelings.” Collection of Tommy and Gill LiPuma.

Maurer applied his knowledge of Fauvism to numerous brightly col-ored landscapes, including “Landscape (Autumn),” 1909. Here heapplied offbeat colors to the path, the hill to the right, all the timeemphasizing the brilliant green of the dominating trees. Collection ofthe Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum at the University ofMinnesota, gift of Ione and Hudson D. Walker.

BY STEPHEN MAYANDOVER, MASS. — A good case can be

made that Alfred Maurer (1868–1932) wasAmerica’s first Modernist painter. A giftedand daring artist, early in the TwentiethCentury he experimented with Fauvism,helped introduce French avant-garde art inAmerica and ultimately created revolution-ary, adventurous compositions that presagedexperiments in abstraction.

An excellent overview of Maurer’s diverseoeuvre is offered in “Alfred Maurer: At theVanguard of Modernism,” on view at theAddison Gallery of American Art at PhillipsAcademy Andover through July 31. Co-curat-ed by Addison curator Susan Faxon andindependent scholar Stacey Epstein, whosingle-handedly has revived interest inMaurer through this exhibition and shows atManhattan’s Hollis Taggart Galleries, theexhibition comprises 70 Maurer works.

Maurer was born in New York City, the sonof Currier & Ives artist Louis Maurer, whoexecuted representational genre scenes andcame to dislike his son’s Modernistic images.Young Maurer left school in 1884 to work inthe family lithographic printing business,and a year later began a decade of study inacademic art at the National Academy ofDesign.

Maurer sailed to France in 1897, stayingthere most of 17 years, during which he wasthoroughly immersed in the French avant-garde movement. At the outset, Maurer,whose friends called him “Alfy,” created fash-ionable portraits that owed much to JamesAbbott McNeill Whistler — and a bit toWilliam Merritt Chase — and drew criticalapproval on both sides of the Atlantic.

“Girls” and “Heads” that Maurer created in the 1920s fea-tured brightly hued and distorted figures of youngwomen, characterized by long necks, red lips and fashion-able clothes, as in “[Three Women],” circa 1928. They werecontroversial in their day and make a lasting impressionin this exhibition. Craven collection.

Alfred MaurerA T T H E V A N G U A R D O F M O D E R N I S M

A D D I S O N G A L L E R Y O F A M E R I C A N A R T

Whistler intrigued Maurer as he tried toseparate himself from academic constraints.The best-known canvas of this period, “AnArrangement” of 1901, earned rave reviewsin New York and established Maurer’scareer.

Eventually abandoning his Whistlerianstyle, Maurer began to work in a romanticRealist manner. An astute observer, Maurerdepicted everything from a rendezvous of aman and woman in a darkened café to a noc-turne of Place St Michelle that resembledworks by John Singer Sargent and Whistlerto a club scene of men — and a cat — gath-ered around a somber shuffleboard game inan ambience reminiscent of John Sloan’siconic “McSorley’s Bar,” painted seven oreight years later in New York.

During a yearlong sojourn in New York,1901–1902, Maurer communed and exhibit-ed with the likes of Robert Henri, WilliamGlackens, John Sloan and other AmericanRealists. Like these future members of theAshcan School, Maurer sought out scenes —primarily at the beach — populated byeveryday folks, not the fashionable upperclass portrayed at the shore by Frenchartists like Eugene Boudin. Maurer’s depic-tions of Coney Island (“a watering placenoted for its seedy crowds,” notes Epstein)and Rockaway Beach, equally swarmingwith working-class crowds, bore more resem-blance to Edouard Manet’s beach vignettes,featuring simplified views of seasidedenizens observed from unusual perspec-tives.

As early as 1904 Maurer was befriended by

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44 — Antiques and The Arts Weekly — June 19, 2015

NEW BEDFORD, MASS. —To my knowledge, there is onlyone antiques show in the coun-try where exhibitors set upunder the dangling, skeletalremains of Kobo and Quasimo-do, a 66-foot juvenile bluewhale and a 27-foot malehumpback whale. This wouldbe the Nautical Antiques Showat the New Bedford WhalingMuseum, from crimpers to dittyboxes the most rewarding mar-ket anywhere for those wholove the sea.This gem of a fair is small but

deep, intense but laid back. It isset in one of the world’s out-standing specialty museums ina richly historic town awashwith references to Herman

Melville and his great whitewhale. After you finish shop-ping, the culinary offerings ofNew Bedford’s vibrant Por-tuguese community beckon atthe popular local restaurantAntonio’s — for starters, try thechorizo stuffie — and at the spe-cialty food market Amaral’s, toname but two area attractions.Launched as a companion to

the New Bedford WhalingMuseum’s annual ScrimshawWeekend, now in its 27th year,the Nautical Antiques Showreturned for its sixth install-ment on Friday, May 15. Mostof the 19 exhibitors, who spilledinto three adjacent rooms,arrayed their wares on table-tops. Two exhibitors, RichardDonnelly and Sandy Moss, coor-dinated the show on the muse-um’s behalf. They hope to have

more dealers next year.A handful of collectors waited

in line for the 11 am earlyadmission opening. More afi-cionados followed at noon.Some of the best known buyersof marine art and antiqueswere already there — swappingscrimshaw, nautical instru-ments and tools, whaling log-books, ship models, photos,paintings, prints and whalingmemorabilia.Timed to catch enthusiasts

coming from Brimfield, theshow closed on Friday at 6 pm,after which the scholarly pre-sentations got underway. Theevent’s perennial sparkplug, DrStuart M. Frank, spoke onscrimshaw gathered by Presi-dent John F. Kennedy. Satur-day’s presenters included PaulE. Vardeman on “Panbones andWhale Teeth: The Scrimshaw ofTwo English Masters of theGenre”; Richard Donnelly on“Farmer Goes a-Whaling: Non-Scrimshaw in the Fabulous Col-

Hyannis Port, Mass., dealer Alan Granby’slatest find was this scrimshaw panboneengraved with an American whaling scene.

“He must have been a snappy little dresser,” Ciara Fritschof The Antiques Depot, Nantucket, Mass., said of the childwho wore this circa 1900 sailor’s suit.

“This portrait is almost certainly by JosephWhiting Stock. It came out of a house inNew Bedford, Mass. We have the family his-tory,” Paul DeCoste said of this handsomeportrait of a sea captain.

The show is paradise for scrimshaw collectors.

This ingenious spinning top is made fromwalrus and whale tooth, panbone and rose-wood. Andrew Jacobson, Ipswich, Mass.

“My dad sold this tooth in 1971 for $375before the Bank Note Engraver was identi-fied,” Parke Madden said of this attributedsperm-whale tooth decorated on one sidewith a scene of a girl riding a dog and, onreverse, a parrot. Paul Madden Antiques,Sandwich, Mass.

David Weston Antiques, Cranbrook, England

Chuck Deluca of MaritiquesAntiques Inc, York, Maine,with a mid-Nineteenth Cen-tury cane carved with spi-ral turnings and a Turk’shead finial.

“Loss of the Packet Ship Albion,” engraved by C. Tiebout afterthe painting by T. Birch, William H. Morgan, Arch Street,Philadelphia. Charles Muenchinger, Central Falls, R.I.

Richard Donnelly ofRichard’s Antiques & Arts,Barrington, R.I., holds apair of engraved walrustusks. On one side areengravings drawn fromwomen’s fashion illustra-tions. The figures onreverse depict the bareknuckle boxers John C.Heenan and Tom Sayers.

Scrimshaw Weekend founder and organizerStuart Frank with Ron Bourgeault.Scrimshaw Weekend concluded with a tripto Bourgeault’s Northeast Auctions to viewthe collection of the late Thomas Mittler ofMichigan.

Swapping Marine Antiques Under The Sign Of The Whale

Review and Photos byAntiques and The Arts WeeklyLaura Beach, Managing Editor

June 19, 2015 — Antiques and The Arts Weekly — 45

Paul DeCoste holds a prisoner-of-war-madesqueak toy. The whimsy encloses a tinywhirligig.

Charles Staude of Capt. C.E. Staude AntiqueTools & Nautical, Pocasset, Mass., featuredthis circa 1850–70 ship captain’s long glass.

Carved and painted miniatures by HarryVreeland (1908–1982) and James Ahern (d1963) at Ann Marenakos, Adelaide Fine Art,Darien, Conn.

Paul and Linda DeCoste, West Newbury, Mass., offered avariety of marine antiques, including this portrait of ObedCarr, who captained the Triton on a whaling voyage to thePacific between 1833 and 1838.

This circa 1900 codfish copper weathervane was $2,500 atHill-Stone, Inc, South Dartmouth, Mass.

Above, “Sir Francis Drake at Age 43,” attrib-uted to Jodocus Hondius, engraving circa1580, the second state of two, and “LapisPolaris Magnes” by Philips Galle, engrav-ing after Jan van der Straet, circa 1590.Below, “A Man of War,” Spanish School,circa 1730s, pen and brown ink and coloredwashes. Hill-Stone, Inc, South Dartmouth,Mass.

Sandy Moss offered this cribbage board decorated with the figure of a shaman on its underside.The walrus-tusk carving is inscribed to Timothy D. Sullivan from John Considine, Seattle, 1902.

Nantucket, Mass., dealer Nina Hellmansigned copies of her new book, “ThroughThe Eyes of A Collector: The Scrimshaw Col-lection of Thomas Mittler. Hellman is sellingthe beautifully illustrated book for $65. Aportion of the proceeds are earmarked forcharity. Hellman will join local authors atthe June 19–21 Nantucket Book Festival.

Pond models, half hulls, ship models, dioramas and naviga-tion instruments are specialties of White’s NauticalAntiques, North Yarmouth, Maine.

David Weston Antiques, Cranbrook, England

At Andrew Jacobson, Ipswich, Mass., a miniature carvedgangway board, left and, right, coastal views by ClementDrew and W.A. Vaughan.

lection of Frederick Allen”;Frank on “Glimpses Behind theScrimshaw: Those PeskyScrimshandering Whalemenand Some of the Other StuffThey Did” and Mary Malloy on“More Yankee Scrimshaw fromPolynesia.” Ipswich, Mass.,dealer Andrew Jacobson gavehis annual report on the mar-ket. The day concluded withFrank’s talk “Farthest Refuge:Visions of St Helena, the Penul-timate Resting Place of Bona-parte, and the Advent of theNapoleonic Scrimshaw.”On Sunday, participants head-

ed to Portsmouth, NH., to tourthe scrimshaw collection of thelate Thomas Mittler at North-east Auctions. The assortmentis documented in the beautifulnew book Through The Eyes ofA Collector: The ScrimshawCollection of Thomas Mittler bymarine arts authority NinaHellman of Nantucket.“Dad sold this in 1971 for $375

before the maker had beenidentified as the Bank NoteEngraver,” said Sandwich,Mass., dealer Parke Madden,holding out an engraved tooth,now priced in the high four fig-

ures, for closer inspection.Scrimshaw scholarship hasadvanced in the past fourdecades, in no small partthanks to the community ofenthusiasts gathered in NewBedford.“I always enjoy coming to this

show. It’s a great way to meetthe collectors and dealers, andto see some great new discover-ies,” Madden added.The New Bedford Whaling

Museum is at 18 Johnny CakeHill. For information, 508-907-0046 or www.whalingmuse-um.org