Louis Ritman

Ontario East Gallery, Chicago
Acquired by the present owner from the above, circa 1965

Chicago, Ontario East Gallery, Louis Ritman, April 9 - May 10, 1964 (possibly)

The following condition report has been provided on September 23rd, 2014, by Simon Parkes of Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc. 502 East 74th St. New York, NY 212-734-3920, simonparkes@msn.com, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This work is in beautiful condition. The canvas is unlined. The paint layer is clean, varnished and stable. No retouches are visible. There has been no change to the texture of the paint or the quality of the palette since the picture was painted, except for one area in the lower right where a slight swelling and small dent have developed. There is no paint loss here. On the reverse corresponding to this area is a painted egg-shaped area either added by the artist himself or by a later hand, perhaps in an attempt to strengthen or relax this surface inconsistency. In my opinion, this does not represent a condition issue. Some correction could be made, or the work could be hung as is.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

The son of Jewish Russian parents, Louis Ritman immigrated with them to the United States in 1903-1904. They eventually settled in Chicago where young Louis quickly found work painting signs to augment his family’s meager earnings. He showed unusually strong artistic talent as a child and drew incessantly.  Through discipline and hard work he was able to study art full-time after winning a coveted scholarship to the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts in 1907.  After a brief period, he entered the Art Institute of Chicago under the acclaimed teacher, John Vanderpoel, and in quick succession moved to Philadelphia for tutelage with William Merritt Chase at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.

Once there, he met Lawton Parker, one of several well-established, older American Impressionists, whose work was already associated with Giverny. Parker, also from the Midwest, introduced the idea that a sojourn of study in France was crucial to Ritman’s development as an artist.  By 1909, Ritman was in Paris, and with the help of Parker, met many of the American artists who had settled in France.  He established particularly important friendships with two other mid-westerners, Frederick Frieseke and Richard Edward Miller, joining all three Americans to spend summers in Giverny and winters in Paris.  With them and their focus on the figure in the landscape, Ritman had found an aesthetic that best suited his talents.

In Looking-Out, Giverny, Ritman approaches his motif as an act of calm and quiet contemplation, an attitude much favored by his compatriots. Here, a lovely young woman gazes out at a lush garden in full flower growing just beyond the open French doors.  Her richly-colored and patterned dress links the table top still life to the myriad white blossoms seen immediately outside the threshold and eventually to the pink roof and yellow facade of the adjoining building, partially masked by the slightly closed blinds of the jalousie.  While the first group of Americans to visit Giverny, led by Theodore Robinson, sought the inspiration of Monet, Ritman’s creative impulses drew from other artists as well.  The table and still life, slightly raised towards the viewer in the foreground echo the influence Paul Cezanne in their structural, blocky brushstrokes and the deeper, richer tones of the interior speak of another major influence, Pierre Auguste Renoir. While both Cezanne and Renoir will assert themselves more strongly in Ritman’s later art, here they are held in perfect balance along with other intimations of contemporary French art.  Both the intimate rendering of the interior and the many textures and patterns we observe throughout—from the splotches of thickly applied pigment in the garden and flowers, the cross-hatching of the window blinds, even the delicate designs of the subject’s dress—suggest a familiarity with the work of the Nabis artists Edward Vuillard and Pierre Bonnard.  Still, in this composition, Ritman remains first and foremost, an American Impressionist; his creation a synthesis of the many and varied experiences of his life, his training and his temperament.