Original Oil of two Girls on a Lakeside Path by Louis Michel Eilshemius (February 4, 1864 – December 29, 1941). Eilshemius was an American painter, primarily of landscapes and nudes. Although he was academically trained, much of his work has the unselfconscious character of naive art. Signed lower right. In frame measures 14.50"x18.25"x2. Weight is 2 pds. PROVENANCE: From the Estate of noted collector and Philanthropist Louis E. Stern (1886-1962) by descent. Art collector, attorney; New York, N.Y. Born in Balta, Russia, Stern joined his father in America ca. 1900, and earned his law degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1909. An avid patron of the arts, Stern's large collection was notable for its illustrated artists' books, prints, sculpture, ancient and primitive objects, and paintings, in particular his many works by Marc Chagall (he was Chagall's US attorney), Picasso, Braque and many more. Upon his death, his collections were given to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, his art library to Rutgers, and other additional items to the Brooklyn Museum and the Museum of Modern Art in New York ARTIST: Louis Michel Eilshemius (1864–1941) was practically unknown to the general public until Marcel Duchamp discovered him in the famous first exhibition of the Society of Independent Artists at the Grand Central Palace in New York in 1917. Duchamp and Katherine S. Dreier organized his first solo exhibitions in a public institution at the now legendary Société Anonyme in New York in 1920 and 1924. Eilshemius's name was suddenly on everyone's lips: some of the most prominent art critics of the time wrote about him, and some of America’s most influential collectors began to take an interest in his work. Eilshemius himself, exhausted and frustrated by his years of failure, and having grown increasingly eccentric (and perhaps also somewhat confused by the sudden change in the reception of his art), gave up painting in 1921. His works, on the other hand, received ever-greater recognition and were exhibited in the most reputable galleries of New York; between 1932 and his death in 1941 there were more than 30 exhibitions of his work. Collectors such as Roy R. Neuberger, Joseph Hirshhorn, Chester dale, and Duncan Phillips, among others, brought and championed Eilshemius's work in the 1930s and 40s. In fact, almost every major museum has at least one Eilshemius in its collection. Although his wok is infrequently exhibited, interest in this artist recurs periodically. The Museum of Modern Art recently exhibited two of his paintings (2000). Among artists, then and now, his work remains appealing for its acquired naïve style, its tonal palette, and to some extent because he symbolizes the essence of an outsider and hereby endures as an American original

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