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I was browsing my usual haunts this morning when I came across this beautiful work. I know it really is outside the purview of this blog but I just had to share it with you just for the sheer joy of it. I have long been an admirer of the Mission Style and in particular the California School of painters from the late 19th and early 20th centuries.I wish I had that control of color that Schmidt exhibits in this work. Every thing just seems to come together in this work, the composition, the color, and that beautiful frame, which was no doubt designed by the artist to compliment that beautiful painting. Here is the description of the work Doyle New York provided with the illustration:
"Karl Schmidt American, 1890-1962 A Dramatic California Sunset, 1928: Triptych Signed Karl Schmidt and dated 1928 left panel (lr) Oil on card laid down on board Overall 8 3/4 x 17 3/4 inches; center panel 8 3/4 x 10 1/2 inches, left panel 8 3/4 x 3 1/2 inches, right panel 8 3/4 x 3 1/2 inches Provenance: Private collection, San Francisco, CA A painter, ceramics designer, and art teacher, Schmidt was born in Worcester, Massachusetts. By 1917, he had moved to Santa Barbara, California, where he was associated with the group of painters who worked in California artist Alexander Harmer`s mission-style studio. In California, Schmidt developed a decorative painting mode in which he abstracted landscape forms, rendering them as flat planes of color thoughtfully arranged within his compositions. His approach suggests the influence of the art of Arthur Wesley Dow, whose method was disseminated by the many Dow students who settled in the Los Angeles area in the early twentieth century. This triptych of magnificent sunset colors and soft-shaped trees and clouds is hinged together in original frames."
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