Robert Melvin Decker (American 1847-1921) signed "R M Decker" lower left. Image size 12" x 18".Decker, who studied under R. Swain Gifford, received his first important recognition at the National Academy of Design in 1883 with his painting "Morning Among the Rockaway Hills" which was bought by the Peabody family. Sometime later when the Peabody collection was put up for sale at Silo's Gallery in New York Decker's "Morning Among the Rockaway Hills" was in the select company of such great artists as Corot, C. F. Dubigny, Bierstadt, and Courbet, to name only a few.Between 1883 and 1885 Decker worked out of a studio at 191 Montague Street in Brooklyn Heights, New York.From 1885 he also owned a studio at Lake George, the Hague, in the Adirondacks, New York, a lovely two-story building on a terrace eighty feet above the lake. Verandas surrounded the house and its windows looked out onto wonderful views of the lake, the woods, the hills and the mountains and it was this beauty that inspired most of his paintings.In 1883, in addition to the exhibition at the National Academy of Design Decker also exhibited another painting, his "November Twilight," in the annual exhibition of the Brooklyn Art Association. It was priced at $75, which for those days was a substantial price, considering that the Association at the time was renting a whole floor for its art school at 201-202 Montague Street for $240 for an entire year.From this time on Decker seems to have been considered an artist of some achievement. He worked and exhibited regularly at one studio or another for part of the year in Brooklyn Heights and the rest of the time at Lake George. He was a member of the Brooklyn Art Club and first exhibited his paintings at their exhibition in 1889. This club (BAC) was organized in 1878 and incorporated in 1890, and unlike the earlier Brooklyn Art Association (BAA), was open only to professional artists.[29] He continued to exhibit at the Brooklyn Art Club through 1896, with consistent critical praise and gratifying sales.

17 x 23 x 1 in