Stillwell House Fine Art & Antiques

07/29/2023

"Cottages by the Sea" Oil on Board by C. Hjalmar "Cappy" Amundsen (1911 - 2001)
Click Below:
https://www.stillwellhouseantiques.com/ATFineArt/AT0460.html

07/26/2023

One of the "The Philadelphia Ten", A Women's Artist Group 1917-1945, Edith Lucille Howard "Cranston Rhode Island" Oil on Canvas.
Click below:
https://www.stillwellhouseantiques.com/ATFineArt/AT0459.html

07/26/2023

Large Seascape "Waves" Oil on Canvas by Guido Odierna (1913 - 1991)
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https://www.stillwellhouseantiques.com/ATFineArt/AT0458.html

07/03/2023

Vintage Folk Art Carved Ships Mermaid!
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https://www.stillwellhouseantiques.com/AAaccessories/AA0120.html

07/02/2023

Summer Sandy Hook, NJ Circa 1914 by American Artist Leon Dabo!
Click Below:
https://www.stillwellhouseantiques.com/ATFineArt/AT0452.html

06/29/2023

“Portrait of a Red Head” by Jean-Jacques Henner (1829 - 1905)
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https://www.stillwellhouseantiques.com/ATFineArt/AT0450.html

06/28/2023

"Cleveland Tower Princeton University" by Isabel Stewart Worthington Harvey (1898-1987).

Isabel Stewart Worthington was born April 23 1898 in Rochester New York. She was very active in music, theater, art and the YWCA of Rochester New York. She studied art in College and received a BA in Art. In 1945 she married Artist and President of the Plainfield Art Association W.(Willard) Craig Harvey (1882 - 1962). She was a teacher at Plainfield School District. She was active in the Plainfield, New Brunswick, Princeton and Summit New Jersey areas. A member of the Plainfield Art Association. She and her husband spent summers painting in Vermont where she was a member of the Northern Vermont Artist Association. She was know to paint impressionistic landscapes, seascapes and still life. After her marriage to W. Craig Harvey she signed her work Isabel Stewart Worthington Harvey. She died October 23 1987 in Plainfield New Jersey.

06/23/2023

Stunning Summer Oil Painting of the woods!
"Light Filtering Through The Forest" by Anton Otto Fischer ( 1882 - 1962)
Click Below:
https://www.stillwellhouseantiques.com/ATFineArt/AT0445.html

06/19/2023

This is a Chinese gilt wood carving made in the Fujian Provence, China. Stunning!

06/04/2023

Summer is here! Beautiful Oil Painting Bouquet of Geraniums in a French Confit Pot by American Artist Leon Dabo (1864-1960)
Click Below:
https://www.stillwellhouseantiques.com/ATFineArt/AT0441.html

05/19/2023

This set of 12 silver “American Indian Statuette” mocha spoons by Tiffany & Co. was designed by Charles T. Grosjean and date to circa 1880. Brilliant branding on Tiffany’s part with the custom fitted pony-hair case, but these sets weren’t particularly popular at the time leading to their current rarity. This is a picture of the set after cleaning. We sent them to Sotheby's Auction in NYC were they were sold. I am including the pictures of the set before cleaning and when we just received them in the gallery! Very exciting find to say the least!

05/13/2023

Wonderful Gothic Style English Late 18th Century Tapestry. Wonderful color and condition.

05/11/2023

An American Parcel-Gilt Silver Centerpiece Bowl, Tiffany & Co., New York, Circa 1891-1902
Oval, the shaped turned-over rim chased with scrolling acanthus and clusters of fruit, the matching foot raised on six paw feet, the gilt interior monogrammed at center LDR, marked on base and numbered 9239-2126.
Length 17 3/4 in.

04/26/2023

Stunning Hand made and painted Meissen Strewn Flower Dessert Set. Circa 1924-34;
Click Here:
https://www.stillwellhouseantiques.com/PMmeissen/PM0101.html

04/23/2023

Today is our 8 year Anniversary in our new building in Red Bank! Amazing how time has flashed by! We have loved every minute! Thank you to all our wonderful customer's local and from around the world!

04/20/2023

Wonderful Collection of Works on paper by American Female Artist Carol Beckwith. These pieces done in the mid Century around 1972. Line and Pen Studies 8 x 10. She used Japanese Pens on Rice paper.

Bio:
Carol Beckwith was born July 10, 1945 in Boston, Massachusetts, where she went on to attend both the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and Goucher College in Maryland. After obtaining her degree in Painting and Photography, she won a traveling fellowship from the Boston Museum, which let her travel to other countries for the first time. She spent seven months in Japan, living in a Zen temple and studying calligraphic painting. She continued to travel through Southeast Asia and New Guinea, where she witnessed a "sing-sing", a gathering of 90,000 Highland warriors, in Mount Hagen, and paddled up Chambri Lakes in a canoe, an experience she called "one of the most wonderful, and in a way formative, experiences in my life.”

Her first trip to Africa was in 1973, when she was invited to spend Christmas with a friend in Kenya. Beckwith bought a 45-day roundtrip ticket and ended up staying eight months. There she encountered the Maasai people who invited her to witness a female circumcision ceremony. Astonished by the ritual, she then determined to spend more time with the Maasai.

It was during her travels through New Guinea that she realized the advantages of photography, saying that "there was such a vast amount of exciting material that I began to photograph instead, approaching photography with the eye of a painter in terms of light, color, composition. I wanted the images to be multilayered experiences in a way that a painting is. . . [Photography] seemed to be a more suitable medium for the pace of travel.”

Beckwith's first major collaboration was with Tepilit Ole Saitoti, an anthropologist and former Maasai warrior whom she met in Boston during one of her painting exhibitions. Their collaboration produced the book Maasai (Abrams, 1980). She also collaborated with anthropologist Marion van Offelen to produce Nomads of Niger (Abrams, 1983), a monograph on the Wodaabe cattle herders. Although she did not have formal training in anthropology, through working alone as well as with other anthropologists such as Saitoti, van Offelen and Linda Donley-Reid, she "was able to absorb techniques of interviewing, to learn what questions to ask in order to explore the many aspects of traditional African life."

Beckwith most important body of work was with Angela Fisher. Beckwith first heard about Angela Fisher through Fisher's brother Simon in 1974, during a hot air balloon ride in Maasai country. They met during Fisher's exhibition of traditional African jewelry in Nairobi, where they discovered they shared a passion for documenting traditional African cultures. Within one week, they were photographing a Maasai warrior ceremony together.

During more than three decades of collaboration, they produced African Ark (Abrams, 1990), African Ceremonies (Abrams, 1999), Passages (Abrams, 2000), Surma (Taller Experimental, 2002), Karo (Taller Experimental, 2002), Maasai, Himba, Hamar (Taller Experimental, 2002), Faces of Africa (Abrams, 2004), Lamu: Kenya’s Enchanted Island (Abrams, 2009), and Dinka (Abrams, 2010). They are currently (2011) working on completing their pan-African study of the art of body painting for a book entitled Africa: Spirit of Paint, as well as on their third and final installation of African Ceremonies, titled African Twilight, scheduled for publication in 2013.

04/06/2023

French born female artist rediscovered! "Le Merle" Oil on Canvas by Anne Marie Joly (1915 -1978)
Click Below:
https://www.stillwellhouseantiques.com/ATFineArt/AT0437.html
Bio:
Anne Marie Joly was born in the year 1915 in a small town outside of Paris, France. She attended The Beaux-Arts de Paris a French grande école whose primary mission is to provide high-level arts education and training. She was influenced by artists Berthe Morissot, Mary Cassatt, Jean Dufy and Gen Paul to name a few.

She exhibited at these Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts ( National of Fine Arts) (member of the committee), Salon des Artistes Indépendants (Salon Independents), Société du Salon d'automne (Salon d'Automne), Union des Femmes Peintres et Sculpteurs (Union of Women Painters and Sculptors) (vice-president).

During her career she had one women shows at many important New York City galleries including The Eric Galleries, NYC, Brewster Gallery, NYC and Babcock Galleries, NYC.

Joly was awarded Grand Prize of the City of Paris in 1960, the Charles Cottet Prize, the Prize of the Salon du Nu at the Société du Salon d'automne and the 1964 grand prize Le prix Puvis-de-Chavannes from the Société nationale des beaux-arts.

Anne Marie Joly is in the permanent collection of many Museums and institutions including the Musee National d'Art Moderne in Paris.

03/29/2023

Another amazing female artist from the past! So much fun to bring her back to the 21 century!

Antoinette Schulte, (aka Antoine , Antoinet, and Schult) born in New York City in 1897.
Her first artistic studies began with the Canadian-American figurative painter George Brant Bridgman, who taught artists at the Art Students League of New York. She also studied with Homer Boss, a well-known artist and philosopher who mastered expressionism and liked to work with “plein air” painting, transmitting to his students the trade in contact with nature on the Maine coast.

In New York she met the already famous José María López Mezquita and became his student with whom she would spend five long years accompanying him on his continuous trips throughout the world.
She later expanded her studies in Paris, where she became a great friend of the painter, engraver, sculptor, and decorator Georges-Charles Dufresne and with the French graphic artist André Dunoyer de Segonzac, creators of Neorealism, the movement that manifested itself in the decades of the 20s and 30s as a reaction to Surrealism and Cubism prevailing at the time. Alongside these artists she exhibited in regularly in Paris and exhibited her works in the United States.

She participated in the Salons of America from 1924, 1929, 1931 to 1935. The 1932 Biennial of the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. In 1936 she exhibited at the Marie Sterner Gallery. In 1942 at the Bignou Gallery branch in Manhattan, and then at its headquarters in Paris. The years 1932, 1933, 1948 and 1952 she exhibited at the Salon d'Automne and at the Salon des Tuileries in Paris. She had a solo exhibition at the Galerie Charpentier in Paris in 1950. The Galerie Charpentier was a gallery of historic and contemporary art in Paris, located at 76, rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré.

She held a solo exhibition in Brussels (Belgium)in 1955 and in 1956 at the Galerie Andre Weil Paris and Galerie Juarez, Los Angeles.
Her work is present in museums and collections such as the Montclair Museum of Art in New Jersey, the Benjamin Wet Museum in New York, the Newark Museum in Essex in New Jersey, the French Government University Collection, the Museum of Aix-en-Provence, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, at the Museum of Modern Art, at the Smithsonian Institution, the Toronto Museum,…
In the New York Times of June 4, 1981, her obituary appeared in which one could read:

Antoinette E. Schulte, artist, died of cancer in her Manhattan apartment on May 26. She was 84 years old. Miss Schulte's paintings, including still lifes, portraits, landscapes, and views of Paris, are in collections and museums around the world. She began painting as a young woman and continued in Paris and later studied with the Spanish portrait painter López Mezquita. Her father was Anthony Schulte, who founded a chain of cigar stores in New York…..”
* Information from Mª Dolores Barreda Pérez and catalogues.

03/24/2023

Wonderful Oil Painting by American Artist Andre Gisson (1921-2003).
Click Below:
https://www.stillwellhouseantiques.com/ATFineArt/AT0435.html

02/22/2023

French Gilt Bronze Louis XVI Cartel Clock by André-Georges Guiot.
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https://www.stillwellhouseantiques.com/AAaccessories/AA0119.html

01/23/2023

This is a fantastic oil painting by American Artist Leon Dabo (1865-1960).

Titled "Fishing Boat: Saint Tropez, No. 14" aka "Etude" (Two Sailboats Near Beach)
Oil on Board
15" x 18" unframed
19.25 x 23.25" framed
Signed and dated 1940 lower left

On Verso:
Sullivan Goss An American Gallery label
Signed Leon Dabo 1940 with Monogram Stamp
Estate Sticker 399
Hand carved Gilt Frame by Carleton Kirkegaard, Santa Barbara.


Provenance:
Estate of Leon Dabo
Ruth Green
David Hollander
Robert Di Domizio
Sullivan Goss
Stillwell House Fine Arts & Antiques

An important painting with great exhibition history.

Exhibition:
March 31, 1941, "When I Last Saw France", Ferargil Galleries, 63rd st 57th St., New York, NY, Fishing Boat: Saint Tropez, No. 14

*Dabo's first major exhibition after slipping out of Europe
in September of 1940 was held from March 31 to April
13, 1941 at Ferargil Gallery in Manhattan. It was called
LEON DABO: When I Last Saw France. Writing in New
York American, Malcom Vaughan wrote:
On these walls are the latest paintings of France to
be rescued from the talons of war. Some were painted
on the Channel coast before the bombs disfigured
it; some reflect the last free-hearted days of sunny
Provence and some were painted in Paris after the
city had suffered defeat.

The Art Digest article covering the exhibition was
titled "Leon Dabo Was There When Paris Died." It
noted that, "The last time Leon Dabo saw Paris it was
literally in the hands of the devil..." The exhibition was
widely covered, largely in similarly stirring language.
Dabo had once again enlisted in a War effort, this
time as an artist. In December of 1941, a National
Art Council for Defense was formed with Dabo on
the Board. He also donated to the French Families
in England Fund of the American-French War Relief
charity. During the War Years, Leon Dabo produced
a number of pieces that were emblematic of French
culture. At 77, it was his way of serving.

* Essay by Jeremy Tessmer, " Leon Dabo En France Encor"

01/21/2023

After the Storm, Lake George by Samuel Theobald, Jr (1872 - 1953)
Click Below:
https://www.stillwellhouseantiques.com/ATFineArt/AT0432.html

12/18/2022

Amazing Pastel by famous Artist Joseph Stella (1877-1946)
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https://www.stillwellhouseantiques.com/ATFineArt/AT0427.html

12/09/2022

Early 19th Century French Bureau Plat Desk
Click Below:
https://www.stillwellhouseantiques.com/FBbuffet/FT-0061.html

12/01/2022

Rare Thai Bronze Head of Buddha, Chiang Sen Style, Circa 15th Century
Click Below:
https://www.stillwellhouseantiques.com/asianporcelain/AP23.html

11/08/2022

A Mid Century Winterscape by American artist Werner Emil Groshans (1913 - 1986) .
Click Below:
http://stillwellhouseantiques.com/ATFineArt/AT0425.html

10/12/2022

Rare dramatic style oil on panel by American Artist Leon Dabo (1864-1960)
Orange Sun over Dark Landscape, 1945
Oil on Panel
16" x 20"
Signed and monogramed, and dated lower right.

Provenance:
Estate of Leon Dabo
David Hollander
Robert Di Domizo
Sullivan Goss and American Gallery
Stillwell House Fine Art & Antiques

* Illustrated in new book coming out
Leon Dabo, En France Encore # 30 pages 88-89.

09/21/2022

A very rare early oil painting by Leon Dabo (1864-1960). A fine example of his early tonalist work. Note the fog hanging over the water of the Hudson River!
Title: River Mists, Night
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: 10" x 11"
Stamped on The back with Leon Dabo Stamp, Estate Sticker # 378

Exhibition:
1905 National Arts Club, New York
Provenance:
Weda Cook (Mrs. Stanley Addicks ) (Concert Singer Robert Eakins did many portraits of her)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Concert_Singer ( the women who owned this Dabo)
https://www.pafa.org/museum/collection/item/weda-cook-classical-costume-facing-left-1
https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/object/106R34
https://www.thomaseakins.org/Weda-Cook.html
Dorothy Cook Moursund
David Hollander
Robert Di Domizio
Stillwell House Fine Art & Antiques

09/18/2022

A wonderful 19th Century Oil Painting by famous artist Hermann Ottomar Herzog (1832 - 1932) .
"Deer in the Deep Woods"
Oil on Canvas
29.25 x 23.5 " Unframed
35.5 x 30" Framed
Collections of: Metropolitan Museum of Art; National Museum of American Art; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; New York Public Library; Crocker Museum (CA); Cincinnati Art Museum (OH); Reading Museum (PA); Hanover, Goth and Mulhouse Museums; Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley; Memorial Hall, Philadelphia (PA).

08/07/2022

"Miniature Golf" by Otto Rothenburgh
Oil on Canvas
24 x 36"
28 x 40" framed
Signed and dated Lower right

This is one of the best I have seen by this artist. it is so full of life and great color.

Born on October 29, 1893 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, he was a son of Henry and Margaret Rothenburgh, German immigrants. Henry was working as a "Sugar Boiler" in 1900 in Philadelphia and as a "Foreman, Sugar Refinery" in Yonkers, New York in 1910.

Otto Rothenburgh studied at the Art Student's League and was living in Yonkers, New York, when he completed his WWI draft registration card. Otto applied for a passport in 1921 stating that he was an artist and traveling to Holland to study and visit relatives, and also traveling to study in the British Isles, Italy, Belgium, Switzerland, France, and Gibraltar. This passport was later canceled. He applied for a new passport in 1925, stating he was traveling to Hungary and the Balkan States. At the same time, his wife, Livia, also applied for a passport, stating she was a native of Budapest, Hungary and that she and Otto were married in Budapest on September 20, 1922. She noted that she had lived in Hungary, Austria, Germany, and Switzerland.

He exhibited at the Society of Independent Artists in 1931 and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts Annuals in 1935 and 1938.

Otto was living in Middle Valley, New Jersey in 1943 when he filled out his WWII draft registration. Rothenburgh died on July 4, 1992 in Califon, Hunterdon County, New Jersey.

07/29/2022

Wonderful Oil on Canvasboard by Leon Dabo(1864-1960)
Click Below:
http://stillwellhouseantiques.com/ATFineArt/AT0419.html

07/16/2022

Rare Maison Jansen Regence Style Ormolu-Mounted Exotic Wood Commode.
Click Below:
http://stillwellhouseantiques.com/FBbuffet/FT-0060.html

07/06/2022

Charming Oil on Board by Ukrainian/ American Artist Joseph Lomoff (1889-1956)
Bio:
Joseph Lomoff was born 1893 in Sevastopol, studied art in Odessa, and immigrated to the New York in 1915. Five years later he was working as a doorman and living with the Slatkin family as a lodger. Lomoff married Anna in 1928, his senior by two years, and it appears they did not have children. In 1940 they were living on West 33rd Street in Brooklyn with their brother-in-law's family. (Louis Perga-ment had married Anna's sister, Rebecca.)
During the Depression Lomoff worked as an artist for the WPA program. His style vacillated between a gauzy, abstract cubism and social realism. The lack of a distinctive style caused some negative critical comment about Lomoff's work. In 1937 Edward Alden Jewell, critic for The New York Times, wrote, "Lomoff['s] 'Hamilton Beach' is delightfully imaginative," but, in 1944, Jewell was less enthused. "Joseph Lomoff, in a set of 4 canvases, runs a sort of gamut from this to that; from a stylized 'Toilers of the Underground' to a filmy 'Visions from the Unknown World,' which might distantly derive from cubism."
Later in his career Lomoff returned to his "futurist" themes, but the paintings by Lomoff which seem most appreciated today are his social realist works. According to Lawrence Fine Art, "Lomoff is known for his works portraying the working man in a heroic, almost larger-than-life fashion. He was clearly influenced by the Socialist Realism of his native Russia."
Stevens Fine Art comments, "He tended to paint from a Proletarian view depicting the noble worker… As so many of his New York contemporaries, he must have visited the coal mining and industrial areas in surrounding states and gained a respect for the physical labor of the common man."
Lomoff took inspiration from the shoreline of Long Island around Jamaica Bay near present day Kennedy Airport. "Hamilton Beach" and "On Jamaica Bay," both vividly colored shoreline scenes, are good examples of this oeuvre.
Lomoff exhibited with the Society of Independent Artists in 1925, 1927-28, 1930, 1932-33, 1937, and 1940-41. The Brooklyn Museum holds several of his paintings.

07/03/2022

07/03/2022

Charming Oil on Board by Ukrainian/ American Artist Joseph Lomoff (1889-1956)

Bio:
Joseph Lomoff was born 1893 in Sevastopol, studied art in Odessa, and immigrated to the New York in 1915. Five years later he was working as a doorman and living with the Slatkin family as a lodger. Lomoff married Anna in 1928, his senior by two years, and it appears they did not have children. In 1940 they were living on West 33rd Street in Brooklyn with their brother-in-law's family. (Louis Perga-ment had married Anna's sister, Rebecca.)

During the Depression Lomoff worked as an artist for the WPA program. His style vacillated between a gauzy, abstract cubism and social realism. The lack of a distinctive style caused some negative critical comment about Lomoff's work. In 1937 Edward Alden Jewell, critic for The New York Times, wrote, "Lomoff['s] 'Hamilton Beach' is delightfully imaginative," but, in 1944, Jewell was less enthused. "Joseph Lomoff, in a set of 4 canvases, runs a sort of gamut from this to that; from a stylized 'Toilers of the Underground' to a filmy 'Visions from the Unknown World,' which might distantly derive from cubism."

Later in his career Lomoff returned to his "futurist" themes, but the paintings by Lomoff which seem most appreciated today are his social realist works. According to Lawrence Fine Art, "Lomoff is known for his works portraying the working man in a heroic, almost larger-than-life fashion. He was clearly influenced by the Socialist Realism of his native Russia."

Stevens Fine Art comments, "He tended to paint from a Proletarian view depicting the noble worker… As so many of his New York contemporaries, he must have visited the coal mining and industrial areas in surrounding states and gained a respect for the physical labor of the common man."

Lomoff took inspiration from the shoreline of Long Island around Jamaica Bay near present day Kennedy Airport. "Hamilton Beach" and "On Jamaica Bay," both vividly colored shoreline scenes, are good examples of this oeuvre.

Lomoff exhibited with the Society of Independent Artists in 1925, 1927-28, 1930, 1932-33, 1937, and 1940-41. The Brooklyn Museum holds several of his paintings.

06/18/2022

A fantastic Oil on Canvas "Before the Ballet" by Francois Gall (1912 - 1987)

Francois Gall, Hungarian by birth, became a naturalized French citizen in 1942. He is best known as an impressionist painter in the pure French tradition. He began his artistic studies at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Rome and was awarded a scholarship in 1930 from the Hungarian government. Six years later: Francois Gall established himself in Paris and became a student of Devambez at the National Academy of Fine Arts. The artist greatly admired the first generation of Impressionists and adopted their concepts for his own interpretations.

Parisian scenes and portrayals of women engaged in typically feminine activities were among his preferred subjects, but his repertoire also included landscapes and still-life composition that were the trademarks of his works. The artist participated in various Salon exhibitions in Paris and became a favorite with the public. In 1963, he was honored with the Francis Smith Prize. He died in 1987. Reference: E. Benezit, Dictionnaire des Peintres

06/10/2022

Wonderful New York Cityscape "Central Park South, The Plaza" by Johann Berthelsen (1883 - 1972) Today speaking with Lee Berthelsen the son of the artist, I was told that another example of this location in a smaller study was included in The Elie and Sarah Hirschfeld Collection, Scenes of New York City: that presently exhibiting at The New York Historical Society. Nothing better than New York in a snowstorm!

Bio:
Johann Berthelsen (1883-1972)

He was born in Copenhagen in 1883, the 7th of seven sons, to Conrad and Dorothea Karen Berthelsen. The parents moved in artistic and professional circles. His father was a tenor with the Royal Opera and his mother was a nurse affiliated with a prominent physician. A year before Johann's birth, his parents visited the United States, but the marriage was in trouble and they returned to Denmark to divorce. In 1890, his mother brought the children to America, settling in Manistee, Michigan, with her sister's family. They would eventually live in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, a city on the shore of Lake Michigan.

As a teenager, Johann was actively involved in choirs and singing groups. And always, he loved to draw and paint. Though obviously intelligent and curious, he was too impatient to take well to schoolwork and never went beyond the 5th grade. It was not uncommon for boys to start working at an early age, and Johann tried several careers with mixed results.

Although he worked at several trades, Johann's mind and heart were always with the arts. As his voice matured, his always pleasant sound evolved into a rich and powerful baritone. Having always wanted to be an actor, at the age of 18, the young man moved to Chicago where he reconnected with an old friend who was studying voice at the Chicago Musical College. When he mentioned his theatrical ambitions, his friend laughed. "With your voice, you should be studying singing," he said. Eventually, he convinced Johann to audition at the Chicago Musical College, owned and operated by Broadway producers, Flo and Willie Ziegfeld. Willie auditioned young Berthelsen and, on the spot, offered him a full scholarship.

He was awarded the school's Gold Medal on two occasions, and after graduation he earned a job as the lead baritone with the newly formed Standard Opera Company which was owned by the Schuberts.

For the next five years, Johann Berthelsen enjoyed a rich and varied career, touring the U.S. and Canada in operas, concerts, Gilbert & Sullivan, and operettas.

Despite considerable success, the grueling pace of life on the road was difficult, and in 1910 he joined the voice faculty at Chicago Musical College. Now, in addition to teaching and performing, he had more time to pursue his other personal interests, especially painting. He became friends with the artist, Svend Svendsen, a noted landscape painter. Svendsen's snow scenes especially intrigued him. Though Berthelsen never formally studied with him, Svendsen would become a major influence in his choice of mood and treatment of light and shadow. In 1913, at the age of 30, he became the youngest-ever head of the voice department at the Indianapolis Conservatory of Music.

In Indianapolis, he began a friendship with the painter, Wayman Adams. A native of Muncie, Indiana, Adams had studied with William Merritt Chase and Robert Henri in Spain and Italy and had already established a reputation as a portraitist. Adams and Berthelsen were to remain best friends for the remainder of their lives. Adams would paint many significant portraits of Berthelsen including a life-sized image of his friend preparing to go on stage.

Although he kept a busy schedule producing student performances and personally appearing as a concert artist and actor, Berthelsen now had more free time to devote to his other interests including painting.

He had a voracious appetite for knowledge in every field and, on one occasion, he agreed to appear on stage in a minor role so that he could observe the great tenor, Enrico Caruso. Even years later, he relished the experience and said that Caruso was, in every way, everything a singer could possibly be. Likewise, he spent hours discussing art with Adams and his other friends.

In 1920, seeking to advance their careers, Berthelsen and Adams moved to New York, where both achieved rapid success. From 1920 through the late '50s , Wayman Adams painted some of his best-known works. Johann Berthelsen established a private school of singing instruction at the Rodin Studios and attracted a distinguished following, including Howard Marsh who created the lead in "The Student Prince," and Robert Halliday who starred in the original production of Romberg's "The Desert Song."

As a hobby, he created pastels and watercolors featuring New York scenes. They were exhibited to excellent reviews, and in 1926, he was elected to membership in the American Watercolor Society.

His most significant pupil was a singer, dancer and entertainer named Helenya Kaschewski. They fell in love and were married on March 15, 1928. They had three children - a daughter, Karen, and two sons, John and Lee.

Established in New York artistic musical and theatrical circles, his professional reputation grew. Financially comfortable, fulfilled and happy, the family was a part of the vital New York arts community.

In 1929, the heady prosperity of the Roaring '20s dissolved in the Stock Market crash, and the arts were among the hardest hit sectors.

With many Broadway theaters shuttered and the Metropolitan Opera cutting salaries, Johann's pupils disappeared. One by one, the family's possessions melted away, and the family began an odyssey through a series of ever-smaller apartments. He described his plight to a fellow artist who responded, "If you could do in oil what you do in pastel, you'll be a great success." With what little money is left, he purchased art supplies and canvases and began to refine his technique in oil painting. He painted quickly and prolifically, his work bringing from $1 to $5 from some of the leading galleries. The proceeds went to buy food and milk. But as fast as he worked, it was sometimes not enough.

Of the many subjects he painted, the one that he would become most identified with was the city itself. The New York snow scenes - his most famous and popular works - burst with movement. Cars, trucks, taxis and people seem to rejoice in the snow that turns the city into a wonderland. He was able to maintain the pace of creation and the level of quality with a draftsman's precision, an unerring eye, and deep feeling. Though he was exclusively self taught he totally owned his craft and technique.

As his paintings become more visible and more popular, his reputation increased. His New York scenes were acquired by, among others, William Randolph Hearst and Richard Berlin, the president of Hearst's magazine empire, who purchased six paintings. In the mid-1930s, Berthelsen became involved in several New Deal art projects. By 1940, his reputation had grown to the point where he was asked to join The Lecture Bureau of the Columbia Broadcasting System.

In August of 1942, the family moved to a small cottage in rural New Milford, Connecticut. The surrounding fields and mountains became the subject of many of Johann's landscape paintings.

With the end of the Second World War, the Depression finally ceased and in the first blush of post-war prosperity, the public again had the time and money to devote to the arts. As more prominent personalities began to collect his work, the demand for Berthelsen's paintings increased. The demand was such that, in 1950, the family returned to live in New York City. Throughout the next decade, increased demand enabled them to return to a more comfortable standard of living.

The 1960s proved to be an especially satisfying time for Johann and Helenya, as the children graduated from college and moved on to begin their own adult lives. Financial pressures lessened and, with his paintings commanding better prices, the couple contemplated a more relaxing lifestyle. They moved to an apartment at Sutton Place and later to Greenwich, Connecticut.

In 1971, while in Manhattan visiting several galleries, Johann was struck by a hit-and-run driver. Although there were no broken bones, the shock to his system brought about a rapid physical decline. Over the next year, he suffered severe skeletal pain and ultimately became bedridden. Even at the end, he expressed himself through art, and his last painting - a Central Park spring scene - was completed with the paintbrush tied to his hand.

He passed away on Easter Sunday, 1972. Following a family service, his ashes were scattered over his beloved Central Park and Manhattan. Today, in Central Park near the very spot where he painted one of his favorite scenes, a memorial park bench is dedicated to his memory.

Thanks to his extensive artistic legacy, his reputation has grown in the years since his death. His paintings hang in museums, universities, institutions, and private collections throughout the country and around the world.

In 2009, through the efforts of his son, Lee, and others interested in his work, The Johann Berthelsen Conservancy, LLC, was created. Among its stated purposes and goals are the celebration of his life and work, the promotion of exhibits of his art, the assembly of a directory of his works and their locations, the publication of information regarding works currently for sale, and the establishment of an authentication service for museums, galleries, auction houses and collectors. In so doing, we hope to share our enjoyment of Johann Berthelsen's work with an ever-increasing public throughout the world.

Adapted from Johann Berthelsen - A Life in the Arts