Robert Spencer

Newlin Price, “Spencer and Romance,” International Studio 76, no. 310, 1923, p. 491, illustrated

“Currents,” Pennsylvania Heritage Magazine, vol. 20, no. 2, 1994, p. 40

Thomas C. Folk, The Pennsylvania Impressionists, Cranbury, New Jersey 1997, pl. 30, pp. 85 and 86, illustrated

Robert Spencer was one of the most prominent painters of the Pennsylvania Impressionists known as the New Hope School. The present landscape shows the Mechanic Street Bridge, which crossed the Delaware Canal in downtown New Hope. The canal was completed in 1832 and served as part of a larger man-made waterway that connected Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Lake Erie, and assisted with the eastward transport of anthracite coal. Spencer’s paintings of New Hope are especially celebrated, and many reside in important institutions including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Detroit Institute of Arts. The present painting is an especially fine example of Spencer’s work and demonstrates the influence of French Pointillism on the Pennsylvanian artist, particularly in his use of rhythmic brushstrokes that exploit color relationships for aesthetic effect. For another painting of the Mechanic Street Bridge, see lot 303 in the present sale.