ELLIOTT DAINGERFIELDStudy of Two Male Nudes.Pencil on paper, 273x279 mm; 10¾x11 inches. Signed by the artist's daughter with an estate stamp on the frame back.Provenance: The estate of the artist, thence by descent to the current owner, private collection, New York.Daingerfield (1859-1932) was born in Harpers Ferry, Virginia, and raised in Fayetteville, North Carolina. In 1880 at the age of 21, he moved to New York and studied at the National Academy of Design and the Art Students League. Within a year, he was teaching life study classes and had discovered the work of the French Barbizon painters, who would influence his work for the rest of his career. He also became friendly with notable painters George Inness (1825-1894), Kenyon Cox (1856-1919) and Walter Satterlee (1844-1908), who greatly influenced Daingerfield. For the next several years, he studied under Satterlee and taught in his still-life classes.In 1886, he was mesmerized by the mountains of North Carolina and subsequently he would spend most summers for the remainder of his life in Blowing Rock. In New York, Daingerfield was exhibited frequently, including in exhibitions at the National Academy of Design and the Salmagundi Club. In 1910, he was commissioned by the Santa Fe Railroad to paint scenes of the Grand Canyon. He traveled west again a couple of years later, this time with his family, in 1912, to paint additional Western landscapes. One of these, Trees on the Canyon Rim, was exhibited at the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, D.C. Both his western landscapes and his religious scenes were highly sought after by contemporary collectors.Daingerfield’s paintings are in numerous prominent public collections including, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Academy of Design, Smithsonian American Art Museum, The Johnson Collection, Spartanburg, South Carolina, and the North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh.