Robert Emmett Owen

Robert Emmitt Owen (American, 1878-1957)

This work is offered in a carved giltwood frame

Owen, a noted Impressionist landscapist, was born in North Adams, Massachusetts. He studied at the Eric Pape Art School (Boston), Art Students League of New York, National Academy of Design School and the New York School of Art. His education included instruction under noted Impressionists Frederick Mulhaupt and Leonard Ochtman. His later style was particularly influenced by noted American Impressionists Willard Metcalf, J. Alden Weir, and Childe Hassam. Before his New York studies, he was already established as an illustrator, selling illustrations to the Boston Globe, National Magazine, and Brown Brook Magazine. Later, his illustrations would appear in Scribner’s Magazine, and Harper’s Monthly. It was only after he moved to New York City in 1901 to further his art training that he was exposed to and enamored of the Impressionist manner of painting. Owen traded in the tight precision drafting style that characterized his illustrations, for a style executed with loose, vigorous brush strokes, using a vivid palette. In 1910, he moved to Bagnall, Connecticut to concentrate on painting New England landscapes. Owen’s landscapes of the New England countryside have been likened to the poetry of Robert Frost, as both realistically depicted scenes of rural American life. In 1919, he was commissioned by Temple Gwathmey, former president of the New York Stock Exchange, to paint a series of 20 paintings. In 1923, he was commissioned by Stephen H.P. Pell, founder of the Fort Ticonderoga Museum for another series of images. Later commissions included those for Edward Stettinus,Jr., former U.S. Secretary of State and Percy Rockefeller. In 1920 Owen, moved back to New York City and opened the Robert Emmett Owen Landscape Gallery, where he exhibited and sold his own work. The business operated until America’s involvement of World War II, after which, he closed the gallery. Owen moved to New Rochelle, NY and became the artist in residence at the Thomas Paine Memorial Museum. Owen exhibited widely, including at the former Corcoran Gallery of Fine Art, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and the Art Institute of Chicago, among many others.

Signed R. Emmitt Owen (lower right)