Questroyal 2009

Seymour Joseph Guy ( 1824 – 1910 ) Plate 18 The Pick of the Orchard (Picking Apples) Oil on board 21 3 / 8 x 13 5 / 16 inches Signed lower right: SJGuy (artist’s monogram) provenance Sandor’s Antiques, Lambertville, New Jersey Lee B. Anderson, NewYork Hirschl & Adler Galleries, NewYork The Collection of Jo Ann and Julian Ganz Jr., acquired from the above exhibited Lyman Allyn Art Museum, New London, Connecticut, American Romantic Paintings of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries from the Collection of Lee B. Anderson , February–March 1961 , as Picking Apples Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg, Florida; Loch Haven Art Center, Orlando, The Good Life: An Exhibition of American Genre Painting by Artists Born during the First Four Decades of the Nineteenth Century , September–November 1971 , as Girl under Apple Tree Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-century American Paintings from Private Collections , June–September 1972 , as Picking Apples National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, An American Perspective: Nineteenth-century Art from the Collection of Jo Ann and Julian Ganz Jr ., October 1981 –September 1982 literature Catalogue of Paintings by Seymour J. Guy, N.A., and Arthur Parton, N.A., to be sold by auction, February 7 th and 8 th at the Fifth Avenue Art Galleries (NewYork, Ortgies & Co., 1893 ), p. 12 , no. 48 , as The Pick of the Orchard . JohnWilmerding, Linda Ayres, and Earl A. Powell III, An American Perspective: Nineteenth-century Art from the Collection of Jo Ann and Julian Ganz Jr., exh. cat. (Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 1981 ), pp. 56 – 57, 136. Linda Ayres, “An American perspective: nineteenth-century art from the collection of Jo Ann and Julian Ganz Jr.,” The Magazine Antiques (January 1982 ): xv, 267 . David M. Lubin, Picturing a Nation: Art and Social Change in Nineteenth-century America (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1994 ), p. 209 . We know of no example of [Guy’s work] that is not pleasant to contemplate––that does not tell some story, however simple the tale, to make us think better of our kind. t. b. thorpe , author, 1876 1 The New “Guy” around Town As noted by art historian David M. Lubin, Guy was made a member of the National Academy of Design in 1865 ; just one year later, he found himself counted among twelve top artists included in a photograph taken in the Tenth Street Studio of T.WorthingtonWhittredge, the academy’s soon-to-be president ( fig. 9 ) . Guy’s “virtually instantaneous prominence within this prestigious and powerful organization” continued throughout his lifetime: his works earned entrance into the academy’s annual exhibitions through 1908 , and he was elected to serve on its council for more than ten years. 2 Furthermore, his reputation and progressive ideas placed him among the founders of the Brooklyn Art Association and Brooklyn Academy of Design. –– jlw Guy’s works are featured in the collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Brooklyn Museum, Cleveland Museum of Art, Cincinnati Art Museum,PhiladelphiaMuseumof Art,andNew-YorkHistorical Society. 1 T. B. Thorpe, “Painters of the Century––No. VIII . Our Successful Artists––S. J. Guy.” Baldwin’s Monthly 8 , no. 2 (August 1876 ): 1 . 2 David M. Lubin, Picturing a Nation: Art and Social Change in Nineteenth-century America (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1994 ), p. 208 ; for Guy’s involvement in the National Academy see David B. Dearinger, ed., Paintings and Sculpture in the Collection of the National Academy of Design , Volume One, 1826 – 1925 (NewYork and Manchester: Hudson Hills Press, 2004 ), pp. 243 – 244 . 3 Lee M. Edwards, Domestic Bliss: Family Life in American Painting, 1840 – 1910 (NewYork: Hudson River Museum, 1988 ), p. 3 .