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| | Irvine, Wilson Henry | (American, 1869-1936) |
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| | Wilson Henry Irvine was a master American Impressionist landscape painter. Irvine is closely associated with the Old Lyme, Connecticut Art Colony headed by Florence Griswold, but he spent his early career near Chicago, a product of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Irvine also painted across Western Europe — where he produced outstanding American Impressionist versions of the local countryside. | | Today, Wilson Irvine's paintings grace the collection of Chicago's Art Institute, as well as other notable collections strong in American Impressionism, including: Old Lyme's Florence Griswold Museum; Washington, D.C.'s Smithsonian Institution National Portrait Gallery and Corcoran Gallery of Art; and Chicago's Union League Club. | | Irvine is best known for his mastery of light and texture — a 1998 exhibit of his work was called Wilson Henry Irvine and the Poetry of Light. To capture subtle effects of light, Irvine often painted “en plein air” — wearing his trademark cap, knickers, and goatee, with his easel and his paints set up in the field. | | Sometimes Irvine's obsession with light led him to paint rather pedestrian subjects — landscapes depicting little more than some trees, or a road or fence. But a number of Irvine masterpieces depict well-composed scenes including houses, boats, bridges — even a handful of portraits, including at least one self-portrait and a nude. |
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