Guy Rose 1867 - 1925

Ada Elizabeth Wrigley
Ada Blanche Wrigley Schreiner, Gig Harbor, Washington (her granddaughter)
By descent to the present owner, 2010 (her son)

Dr. Will South writes, "American Impressionism emerged most fully in California in the late works of Guy Rose. What he brought West was a mature understanding of translating atmospheric subtlety into paint at the same time he managed to allow individual brushstrokes to retain their identity as daubs of pigment. In the present untitled view of the coast at Laguna, Rose’s mastery of the medium is obvious, as is his restrained sense of poetry: he makes the largeness of the Pacific intimate, and the often bold outline of the shore quiet. Rose understood well the possibilities of humble subject matter, composition and scale, and further how a limited palette, such as the blue-green program of this Laguna cove, could express more than the outsized canvas of many colors. And, while Rose’s debt to French precedent is also obvious, and his years of residence at Giverny inform this later work, he nonetheless touches upon an early-twentieth century California aesthetic (indeed, one he helped to create) wherein the landscape is approachable, lyrical, nuanced, and ever soothing."