Artist: Martha Walter
Size: 11" x 14" unframed/stretched
Medium/Ground: Oil on Canvas
Year Created: Unknown
Signature: Hand signed Lower left corner
Year: Early 20th century
Condition:Very Good, may need cleaning from age. No frame - stretched with hand made nails.
Description: Very sensitive portrait of back of female nude looking down in front of what appears to be a mirror - although we cannot see her reflection. The colors are muted tones of greens, blues and reddish browns giving the sense of peace along with her loneliness. It is a revealing portrait done by one of the premier female American artists - Martha Walter. Acquired from a private Palm Beach collection.

Biography: (1875-1976)
Martha Walter from the Archives of askART


Martha Walter was a well-known Philadelphia-born Impressionist who specialized in light hearted, colorful beach scenes especially of Gloucester, Coney Island, Atlantic City and the French Coast. She went to Girls High School, and from 1895 to 1898, studied at the Pennsylvania Museum & School of Industrial Art, now The University of the Arts College of Art and Design. Her recognitions at the school included the following:

1895/96: Received Certificate A in Industrial Drawing. Received honorable mention for the Henry Perry Leland Prize given by Mrs. John Harrison for work in Pen and Ink; $20 second prize for best set of drawings in the Course of Industrial Drawing.

1896/97: Received John T. Morris Prize of $10.00 for drawing of Details of the Human Figure; Jacob H. Weil Prize of an outfit of Oleo Water-Colors for best sketch in water-colors from Life.

1897/98: Honorable mention for the Mrs. George K. Crozer Prize offered for the best work in drawing; Caroline Axford Magee Prize of $20.00 for group of designs introducing decorative use of the human figure.

At the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, she studied with William Merritt Chase, and at his insistence, she entered competitions for various student awards. She won the Tappan prize in 1902, and was one of four artists to win the first two-year Cresson traveling scholarship in 1908, which afforded her the opportunity to go to France, Holland, Italy and Spain.

She attended the Grande Chaumiere in Paris where she had the advantage of the critical counsel of both Rene Menard and Lucien Simon, but eventually she felt their strictly classical approach too restrictive to her progress, so she enrolled in the Academie Julian. Once again she grew weary of the boundaries of tradition and so established her own studio in the Rue de Bagneaux with several other young American women artists. It was at this point that she developed her infatuation and skill for plain-air subjects.

Walter's early work, 1900-1908, shows the very strong influence of William Merritt Chase. Her use of rich saturated colors, combined with her adept application of black paint was very successful. Black was a pigment extraordinarily difficult to master, and often omitted in the general course of American Impressionism.

The quietude of Martha Walter's Paris period lasted until about 1912 when she began to vivify her palette and concentrate on light and shadow. Upon her return to America, around the beginning of World War I, she favored the use of bright and intense colors as highlights in her beach scenes of Bass Rock, Gloucester and Atlantic City. Her works had more spontaneity, as she concentrated on hues rather than subjects. In this sense she was once again in league with the French Impressionists who were frequently more concerned with the color recorded than with the form drawn. The subtle dissolution of forms tended to accentuate the predominant central theme in her works. Her figures did not suffer; they merely became more elusive.

Walter's influence throughout her career was chiefly derived from the work and teachings of William Merritt Chase. She journeyed to the very places where Chase had painted - Shinnecock, Carmel, Paris, Holland, etc. Martha Walter had a studio in New York, taught at Chase's New York School of Art and had a studio in Gloucester, and even taught in Brittany. She was continually traveling back and forth to Paris.

While she was in France, Eugene Boudin proved to be another strong source of inspiration for her. Many of Walter's beach scenes exhibit varying tones of gray, which are reminiscent of the atmospheric quality achieved in Boudin's work. Many of Walter's canvases are obviously distinct reflections of French Impressionism. Through it all though, she developed a style of painting, which was a uniquely Martha Walter, with bold dashing brush strokes in conjunction with total color control, and well organized composition. Her style reflected the sensitivity of her European predecessors, but maintained a vigor, which was definitely American. Cecelia Beaux offered favorable criticism of Walter's work by saying that the beach scenes seemed as if they were blown onto the canvas.

Walter visited Chattanooga, Tennessee, many times from 1903 to 1910, where she painted commissioned portraits and landscapes during the summer. Her ability to contrast her light and vibrant palette to the harsh reality of life in the mountains of Tennessee as expressed by the children that she saw and portrayed make the poignancy of the moment even more heart wrenching. Some of the children that she portrayed were so under-privileged that they didn't even know the meaning of the word mountain.

In 1922, Martha Walter was given an exhibition of her paintings at the Galleries George Petit in Paris. The French government purchased a painting entitled The Checquered Cape from this exhibition, for the Musee de Luxembourg. This picture was a study for a larger painting of the same name.

In the 1930s, Martha Walter was represented by Milch Galleries in New York, and it was then that she began to travel to North Africa to paint her chromatic impressions of Tunis, Tripoli and Algiers. The harsh African sun lent the cafe scenes, camel markets, and souk transactions an intense but different color sense than her American and French subjects. The broad flat planes of the local architecture, combined with the flowing Arabian robes worn by the inhabitants, gave her renderings of sharply defined areas of color a new dynamic quality. From Africa, Walter traveled to the Dalmatian coast where she settled for a long enough time to paint dozens of bustling market scenes.

Although well advanced in years, Martha Walter continued to paint until a few years before her death in 1976.

She has been represented in the Museum collections of Musee de Luxembourg, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Art Institute of Chicago, Detroit Institute of Arts, Milwaukee Art Center, Toledo Museum and the Woodmere Art Center, Philadelphia.


Sources:
Paul Sternberg, Art by American Women
Additional information supplied by Sara J. MacDonald, Public Services Librarian
The University of the Arts, whose source are the PMSIA commencement programs and annual reports.



Biography from McLaren Auction Services

Martha Walter was best known as a painter of colorful beach scenes and landscapes. She attended the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where she studied under William Merritt Chase. At his insistence, she entered a number of student competitions and eventually won a prestigious Cresson traveling scholarship in 1908. This award enabled her to travel throughout Europe, where she continued her art education at the Grande Chaumiere and the Academie Julien in Paris. Walter worked well into her nineties, continuing to paint portraits of women and children, beach scenes, gardens and marketplaces. Before her death in 1976, she had exhibited widely, and her works are included in major national and international private and public collections.



Biography from Hammer Galleries

Martha Walter was best known as a painter of colorful beach scenes and landscapes. Influenced by the French impressionists during her travels abroad, these canvases were spontaneously executed with a palette of vivid colors.

Walter was born in Philadelphia in 1875. She enrolled at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where she studied under William Merritt Chase, who became her primary mentor. At his insistence, she entered a number of Academy student competitions and eventually won a prestigious Cresson Traveling Scholarship in 1908. This award enabled her to travel throughout Europe, where she continued her art education at the Grande Julien in Paris. Soon disenchanted with the academicism of the Parisian schools, Walter set out on her own and began producing plein-air paintings in the manner of the French Impressionists.

At the outbreak of World War I, she returned to the United States and took up painting at various East coast beach resorts such as Coney Island and Gloucester. In her beach scenes of this period, colorful bathing suits, gowns and umbrellas punctuate a tranquil, pastel surface. Her expertise in the treatment of light and shadow is evident in her depictions of these settings at various times of day.

In 1922, she spent some months painting the thousands of immigrants kept in the detention hall at Ellis Island. The dreadful, crowded conditions inspired a group of paintings that were exhibited that year in the Galerie Georges Petit in Paris. One was selected for the permanent collection of the Musee de Luxembourg. An exhibition at the Art Club of Chicago in 1941 featured a group of watercolor paintings inspired by the artist's travels through Spain and North Africa. These works were intensely colored visions of such subjects as Algerian street scenes, mosques and Spanish fishermen.

Walter worked well into her nineties, continuing to paint portraits of women and children, beach scenes, gardens and marketplaces. Before her death in 1976, she had exhibited widely, and her works are included in major national and international private and public collections. Hammer Galleries had several exhibitions of her work during her lifetime, the last taking place in 1975 when the artist was one hundred years old.



Biography from Charleston Renaissance Gallery


MARTHA WALTER (1875-1976)

Influenced by the French impressionists during her travels abroad, Martha Walter did canvases of light-hearted genre scenes and landscapes spontaneously executed with a palette of vivid colors. Born in Philadelphia, she enrolled at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where she studied under William Merritt Chase. At his insistence, she entered a number of student competitions and eventually won a prestigious Cresson traveling scholarship in 1908. This award enabled her to travel throughout Europe, where she continued her art education at the Grande Chaumiere and the Academie Julien in Paris.

Soon disenchanted with the academicism of the Parisian schools, Walter set up her own studio and began producing plein-air paintings. At the outbreak of World War I, she returned to the United States and took up painting at various East Coast resorts such as Coney Island and Gloucester. In her beach scenes of this period, colorful bathing suits, gowns, and umbrellas punctuate the tranquil, pastel surfaces. Her expertise in the treatment of light and shadow is evident in her depictions of nursemaids, mothers, and children. In 1922, Walter spent some months painting the hundreds of immigrants kept in the detention hall at Ellis Island. The dreadful, crowded conditions inspired a group of paintings which were exhibited that year in the Galerie Georges Petit in Paris. An exhibition at the Art Club of Chicago in 1941 featured a group of watercolor paintings inspired by the artist's travels through Spain and North Africa. These works were intensely colored visions of such subjects as Algerian street scenes, mosques, and Spanish fisherman.

Walter worked well into her nineties, continuing to paint beaches, gardens, and marketplaces. Before her death in 1976, she had exhibited widely and her works were included in major national and international private and public collections.

This essay is copyrighted by the Charleston Renaissance Gallery and may not be reproduced or transmitted without written permission from Hicklin Galleries, LLC.



Biography from Taylor | Graham


It was in France, where Martha Walter established herself as a plein-air Impressionist. For Martha Walter, like many young artists at the turn of the century, an opportunity to study abroad was the next and most vital step in an artistic career. At the insistence of her teacher William Merritt Chase, Walter entered and won the Cresson traveling scholarship. In 1903, courtesy of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, she traveled to Paris to begin classes at the Academie Grande Chaumiere and the Academie Julian. Walter soon found the rigid academic institutions rather stifling to her natural talents. Her French teachers saw in her, as did Chase, an innate ability and naturalness that would only be inhibited by academic reins.

With her teachers' blessing she was granted a special dispensation and allowed to pursue her studies out of doors in the French countryside. Walters was soon sharing a studio with several other young American women and would remain in France until the outbreak of World War I, producing many of her most important works in her very independent and unique Impressionist style.

Martha Walters returned to the United States at the outset of World War I and gravitated to the artist colony of Gloucester, Massachusetts, a New England fishing village. She would return there frequently for the rest of her life.

Exhibitions:
Gallery Georges Petit, Paris
La Salon d'Automne
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
National Association of Women Artists
Toledo Museum of Art
Milwaukee Art Institute

Collections:
The Louvre
Musee du Luxembourg
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
Art Institute of Chicago
Detroit Institute of the Arts
Toledo Museum of Art
Woodmere Art Gallery
Terra Museum of Art
Milwaukee Art Center



Biography from Kingston Bay Gallery

Born in Philadelphia, Martha Walter was a well-known Philadelphia Impressionist who specialized in light hearted, colorful beach scenes, especially of Gloucester, Coney Island, Atlantic City and from along the French Coast.

She studied at the Pennsylvania Academy with William Merritt Chase. On a two-year traveling Cresson Scholarship, she visited France, Spain, Italy and Holland and attended the Academie Grande Chaumiere and the Academie Julian in Paris. Finding the academy structure too confining, she established a studio in the Rue De Bagneaus. Her painting captured the animation of the city and the light and color of seashore scenes.

With World War I, she returned to the United States and set up a studio in Gloucester, Massachusetts, painting beach scenes. She also became intrigued with Ellis Island and painted people as they arrived in ethnic costume from other countries.


Condition:
Alterations: Original Condition Unaltered
Imperfections: Some Imperfections
Condition Notes: Very good, Unframed and Stretched. Hand made tacks

Origin:
United States

Materials & Techniques:
Canvas, Oil Paint

Winning bidders will be contacted regarding shipping after the auction closes.

Original Condition Unaltered; Some Imperfections; Very good, Unframed and Stretched. Hand made tacks