ARTIST: Bruce Elliot Roberts (New York, Florida, Virgin Islands, 1917 - 1993)
NAME: Hawling Traps (titled on verso)
YEAR: 1976
MEDIUM: oil on canvas
CONDITION: Few minor paint losses. No visible inpaint under UV light. Some damages to frame.
SIGHT SIZE: 24 x 36 inches / 60 x 91 cm
FRAME SIZE: 30 x 42 inches / 76 x 106 cm
SIGNATURE: lower right and on verso
NOTE: has artist stamps on verso
CATEGORY: antique vintage painting
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SKU#: 121713
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BIOGRAPHY:
Famed maritime artist Bruce Elliott Roberts was best known for his accurate depictions of sailing ships, naval engagements and dock scenes.
Living a life on both land and sea, he amassed a prolific knowledge of maritime history and used that to create hundreds of works of art.
Working mostly with oil on canvas or oil on wooden panel, he diligently mastered techniques that provided his art with realism and exhaustive attention to detail.
He treated painting as his job with the day starting at 8am and ending at 5pm - or sometimes 6, if he was really into his work. He preferred the daylight of his studio but he was often found in his studio at night researching, sketching or studying. He understood that in order for his work to be appreciated it had to be correct. He knew the sky, sea and ship must be correct. The waves must match the wind direction; the sea and sky must match the locale; the ship construction and rigging must match the history of the times and the original sources were always best for the historian.
Often Bruce would make models of ships (or have them built by master model makers) just as the early Dutch and English marine painters did, and then would photograph the models in hundreds of different positions in varying degrees of light and shade in order to understand how the ship would appear. He once figured that he had amassed over 9,000 photographs of models and ship's gear (masts, blocks, barrels and details of actual sailing ships) alone.
He experimented with his palettes, sometimes using the palettes of the Old Masters, sometimes the Impressionists and that of a contemporary palette which contained no earth colors and no black. He tried a palette taken from the English School of marine painters of the 18th century which was heavy with umbers and browns. He often advised that the artist should "fit the palette to the painting" and not the other way around. He often studied the works of the great maritime painters such as Turner, Dawson, Patterson, Canaletto, Van de Welde, Constable, Boudin, Daubigny, Twatchman and Homer.
Bruce favored oil and worked on surfaces such as high grade imported linen, masonite and mahogany panels. He preferred to make the panels himself, carefully building up each panel with three to six coats of gesso then sanding them smooth and finally adding a coat of a special preparation before he would begin painting with the oils.