ARTIST: Hardie Gramatky (Texas, Connecticut, California, 1907 - 1979)
TITLE: Royal Procession
MEDIUM: gouache and watercolor on board
CONDITION: Some small damages to corners. Some glue residues from old mat.
ART SIZE: 13 x 11 inches / 33 x 27 cm
FRAME SIZE: unframed (In-House framing available)
SIGNATURE: lower right
NAME VARIANTS: Bernhard August Hardie Gramatky Jr
CATEGORY: old antique vintage painting for auction sale online
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SKU#: 127166
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BIOGRAPHY:
Bernhard August "Hardie" Gramatky, Jr. was an American painter, writer, animator, and illustrator. In a 2006 article in Watercolor Magazine, Andrew Wyeth named him as one of America's 20 greatest watercolorists. He wrote and illustrated several children's books, most notably Little Toot.In the early 1930s, he became active in the California Watercolor Society, an organization founded in 1920. It was largely through his efforts that the young watercolorists of the California School were able to dominate the Society and establish it as an internationally recognized organization. In 1932, he married Dorothea Cooke, who had been his fellow student at Chouinard. In 1936, Gramatky moved to New York City. There, the Ferargil Gallery began exhibiting his watercolors and, in 1937, those of other members of the California School as well. Gramatky was also among those whose work was exhibited in a major show of California artists mounted at the Art Institute of Chicago that year. Ultimately, his work would be exhibited at numerous museums, including the Whitney Museum of American Art and New York City's Metropolitan Museum of Art. Examples of his work are part of the permanent collections of the Brooklyn Museum of Art, Chicago Art Institute, and Frye Art Museum in Seattle, Washington, among others. By the 1940s, he was producing commercial art to be used for magazine illustrations and began writing and illustrating a series of children's books, including Hercules, Loopy, Creepers Jeep and Sparky. Gramatky's most successful book was his first, Little Toot, published in 1939. It became a perennial best seller, spawning several sequels, and was animated by Disney as part of the feature anthology Melody Time. During World War II, he worked in Hollywood producing training films for the United States Army Air Forces. After the war, Gramatky returned to the East Coast, settling in Westport, Connecticut, where he would live for the rest of the life. He continued working as a commercial illustrator producing art for Fortune, Collier's, Woman's Day, True, American and Reader's Digest. He also wrote and illustrated several sequels to the original Little Toot story. Gramatky died of cancer on April 29, 1979. His last book, Little Toot and the Loch Ness Monster, was unfinished at the time of his death. Following the 50th anniversary of Little Toot it was completed by his wife and daughter, Dorothea Cooke Gramatky and Linda Gramatky Smith, and published in 1989.