Collections record Beta

Painting - Landscape

1953-17-33

Acrylic painting on paper of a pond scene. There is a cluster of plant life on the lower and middle right-hand side of the piece. Purves uses various shades of green, brown, gray and white for both the pond and pond life. there are specks of white, brown and orange to indicate fish swimming below the surface of the pond. Written in the back in black ink: "POND/Austin Purves, Jr./1948." The painting is also dated "10/24/48" in pencil on the bottom right hand corner of the front.

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

1948

Overall Width 1'6"; Length 1'1.625"

• ink
• acrylic
• pencil
• paper