Collections record Beta

Painting - Landscape

1953-17-32

Oil painting on wooden board with dirt path in foreground and winding into the landscape towards the cluster of trees in the background. Landscape is dotted with trees - more nondescript in the background. Purves uses a soft palette - greens, purples, oranges with touches of pinks, whites, yellows and blues. The back of the board is textured and painted white. Written on back in pencil: "Austin Purves/Oyster Bay/1923."

Born in Philadelphia, Austin M. Purves Jr. (1900-1977) lived in the East Litchfield section of Litchfield for the last 40 years of his life. Purves studied art at the Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts and the Académie Julian in Paris, France, before opening a studio in New York, where he was director of the day and night schools at the Cooper Union. After moving to Litchfield, Purves taught art at Bennington College and at Yale Art School and was a member of the Architectural League of New York, the National Society of Mural Painters, and the (then newly-formed) Hartford Art School. Over the course of his career Purves did commission work for R. H. Macy & Co., the Folger Memorial Library in Washington, D.C., the American Battle Monument in Draguignan, France, the 1939 World’s Fair, various churches, ship lines and private clients, among others. In addition to commission work, Purves drew primarily from people and nature for his own personal sketches and paintings.

• Purves, Austin, 1900-1977

1923

Overall Width 1'; Length 10"

• pencil
• paint
• oil
• board