Charles Hebrew (1886-1951) original oil painting of bucolic scene- 13" x 10". Some damage- see detailed photographs. Signed on frame on back. Heberer, born in St. Louis in 1868, began his art studies at the St. Louis School of Fine Arts, established in 1879. There had been an art academy in St. Louis, the Western Academy of Art, which opened in 1859 and inaugurated its first annual exhibition a year later. This institution finally merged with the St. Louis School of Fine Arts in 1879. Heberer probably enrolled in art history classes taught by Halsey C. Ives, the first director. There was also instruction in drawing, painting, anatomy, and perspective, as well as European history and literature. Other instructors included Carl Gutherz (1844-1907) and Mary Fairchild (1858-1947), who would become the wife of the sculptor Frederick MacMonnies, then Mrs. Will Hicok Low. Like the young Fairchild, Heberer decided to study further in Paris. He enrolled at the Académie Julian, and between 1890 and 1895 was successful enough to exhibit his works in the Paris Salon, mainly rustic spots in Normandy. A Farm in Normandy was engraved for the catalogue of the Salon of 1890 (cat. no. 1184). A diagonal tree dominates the composition, which features cattle in the foreground. Shafts of light form counter-diagonals and in the painting, the whole effect of rays of sun streaming in through foliage must have been stunning. Meanwhile, Heberer submitted one work to the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago (1893), entitled The End of November (unlocated). "November" was a familiar title among plein-air painters associated with Bastien-Lepage, Alexander Harrison, and others who painted in Brittany and Normandy. Characteristic works by Heberer from this period display the popular influence of Bastien-Lepage's plein-air tonalism, in which clearly defined forms, usually figures of peasants, occupy spaces filled with softly diffused light.A year later (1894) comes Farmyard, La Celle-au-Pontaise, a lyrical summer landscape most likely executed just east of Rambouillet along a brook called La Celle. Here tonalism has given way to the more progressive use of a bright palette, pure pigments, and a restricted range of values. There is plenty of free brushwork with broken color, especially in the sky area near the horizon. The violet colored roofs and hints of violet in the sky add to this radiant plein air painting elements that acknowledge impressionism. Thus by 1894, Heberer, like so many other American painters working in and around Paris, was at least experimenting with the French aesthetic. In 1898, Heberer exhibited A Sunday Morning with Burns at Mossgiel at the Art Institute of Chicago. This was the poet Robert Burns (1759-1796), whose farm was called Mossgiel. Therefore, Heberer was interested in historical genre and in his admiration for the poet, he also painted Robert Burns and Highland Mary, on auction not long ago. "Highland Mary" was Mary Campbell, with whom Burns had one of many extramarital affairs. Overshadowing the genre element, however, is the lush forest landscape with a shallow brook indicated below. Also in 1898 Heberer exhibited the same painting (A Sunday Morning) along with October Morning in Normandy at the 15th annual St. Louis Exposition. Heberer was associated with the Society of Western Artists, founded in 1896. For some reason he did not exhibit in the St. Louis Universal Exposition in 1904. In fact, his artistic activity seems to have slowed down until his death much later in 1951. Submitted by Michael Preston Worley, Ph.D.

some damage- see detailed photos