The Passion of Collecting Academic Nudes

Join me as we explore my collection of Academic Nudes from the 18th, 19th, and Early 20th Centuries and serendipitous finds in the Museum, Art Auction, and Gallery world......examples from the Golden Age of the European Academie


Sunday, September 4, 2022

Joseph Duncan Gleason (1881-1959). Standing Nude Boy - Watercolor on Paper - circa 1950

 


                          The Artist: Joseph Duncan Gleason (1881-1959)

                           The work coming into my collection:



                              Title: Standing Nude Boy
                              Artist: Joseph Duncan Gleason (1881-1959)
                              Materials: Pencil Drawing, Watercolor on Paper
                              Signed: Not Exhibited, Artist's Label on Reverse
                              Dated: Circa 1950

At first appearance you might just wonder why a Blog featuring a preponderance of 19th Century Academic Nudes would include an Academic nude which was created circa 1950 by an America Artist. The secret to my collecting this work lies in the “classical” European training that the artist received and not necessarily in the age of the work, although the beauty of the work speaks for itself. My first impression when I spotted this work on eBay was “Wow.. that's amazing!.....shades of Renoir’s 1868 painting: “Young Boy with a Cat!” It is a beautiful lyrical depiction of innocence in the form of a young male nude subject, classically posed in that standing contrapposto pose. The initial impression was just that strong, but in this case, the medium was different, watercolor on paper, which shows the complete command of drawing and painting the artist possessed. Watercolor is not an easy medium to master and here you see a fine mastery of the medium by a sight-size classically trained and talented artist. You can readily see the underlying pencil drawing and I did some quick research on the artist which proved to me that he had a very respectable compilation of auction results and was well listed and exhibited. The listed price was somewhat below his other sales results for a works on paper and the subject matter was indeed unique, so I executed the buy. Now, what about the history of this artist really caught my attention? His art training at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries was the detail which really peaked my interest: "College of Fine Arts at USC, in 1899 the Mark Hopkins Institute, San Francisco, San Carlos Academy in Mexico City, The Art Institute of Chicago, and The Art Students League of NewYork"…. All before 1910! That is some impressive classical European Academic training, unpolluted by later modernist artistic garbage. Gleason is best known for his maritime paintings but his minor figurative works will be listed here below.


Here is a quick biography of the artist as it originally appeared on the listing:

"Joe Gleason was a native of California, born in Watsonville, in 1881.  He was known for his landscape and marine paintings of San Pedro Harbor on the California coast.  He also wrote and illustrated several books on California maritime history and worked for the scenic art department at Metro Goldwyn Mayer and Warner Brothers studios. 

Gleason was raised in Los Angeles, California, and was working for the Union Engraving Company when he was only fourteen years old.  He was skilled at drawing and sketching and took his first art training at the University of Southern California as a pupil of Lees Judson. Gleason then moved north to San Francisco to attend the Mark Hopkins Institute of Art.  While going to school he worked for the Sunset Engraving Company as a commercial artist.  
He studied in Chicago at the Art Institute of Chicago and from 1900 to 1901, took lessons from Frank DuMond at the Art Students League in New York City.  He supported himself as a commercial artist. 

He stayed in New York for ten years before returning to Los Angeles in 1910.  He exhibited at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (1924), the Arizona State Fair (1932), the California Palace of the Legion of Honor (1945) and the Golden Gate International Exposition (1939).  He painted murals in the Hotel Clark and for Gardena High School (Los Angeles). 

When he wasn't pursuing a career in art, Gleason was training as a championship gymnast.  He won the International Championships eleven times on the Rings.  Gleason was also an author and illustrator of two books he wrote about the California coast.  Later in life he worked for the MGM and Warner Brothers Studios in Los Angeles. Gleason died in Glendale, California on March 9, 1959.

Here is what immediately came to mind when I first set eyes on the above work:


                      "Young Boy With a Cat" ... 1868

         Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919)

                                 Here are additional views of the Gleason work:













And last but not least, here are a few examples of his other figural works:

















And what he is best known for and which bring in the big bucks at auction:










To Restore or Not To Restore?…. That My Fellow Art Travelers is the real question!


I was doing my usual stumbling around in the barren halls of eBay USA this morning when I stumbled upon what to my eye appeared to be a “wreck” of a painting. The image had apparently been cut down from a larger painting, repaired by adding more canvas, restored somewhat amateurishly by god knows who with god knows what, and relined. My mind immediately went to the many videos I have watched on YouTube of Master Conservator Julian Baumgarter as he goes through, in his mild mannered, learned, philosophically constructive way, of what is wrong with a Fine Art painting, and how he plans to fix it, all in a totally reversible way. I said to myself, this needs to be repaired, that needs to be scrapped off in a laborious process, this needs to be removed, all because Julian Baumgartner has produced some educational and very instructive videos on the ways he and his very talented crew go about cleaning and restoring beautiful works of Art. Here is the canvas that I spotted this morning (Artist and Restorer unknown):







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My conclusion regarding this painting is?……..…. No, in my mind, it just isn’t worth restoring and certainly not worth the asking price if the actual restoration costs more than the painting will ever be worth (baring a detailed Provenance making attribution to some well known and well represented artist). Having experienced the costs of art restoration I can assure you perfection does not come cheaply!

Go on over to YouTube and look up those great videos by Baumgartner Fine Art Restorations. You will enjoy every minute and if you are not very careful, you might even learn something very important about Fine Art Restoration from a Master Fine Art Restoration Expert!