$8,000
Estimate: $15,000 - $25,000
American Art & Pennsylvania Impressionists
Auction: December 6, 2020 2:00:00 PM EDT
Oil on canvas
36 x 24 in. (91.4 x 61cm)
Executed circa 1919.
Provenance
The Artist.
A gift from the above.
The Sitter, Mr. Otis Skinner.
His daughter, Cornelia Otis Skinner.
By descent in the Skinner family.
Private Collection, New York.
Note
Born in Pennsylvania to Polish immigrant parents, Luks was the most outspoken figure of the group of artists known as "The Eight." Mostly recognized for his gritty and striking urban scenes of New York City. Luks focused on the daily life of shoppers, street markets and passers-by. He also devoted a significant part of his career to painting portraits. Just like in his street scenes, Luks used portraiture to reveal the true nature of his subjects, as exemplified by the following three works: Portrait of Otis Skinner as Colonel Philippe Brideau (Lot 35), The Redhead (Lot 36) and Shoeshine Boy (Lot 37). All are executed with a directness and vitality that suggest the artist worked quickly, in order to capture the true spirit of his sitters. The rich impasto and dark background are characteristic of the artist’s style, which harkens back to Dutch and Spanish Old Masters like Frans Hals and Diego Velázquez, who strongly influenced the artist’s work. The three paintings also speak to Luks’ universality and involvement with all the social classes of his time, as he depicts with equal talent and care a rising-star actor, a fashionable lady, and an impoverished shoeshine boy. Through tiny details and a mastery of color and shapes, Luks splendidly captures the soul of each portrait: Skinner’s debonair attitude, the redhead’s elegance, as well as the small boy’s innocence – one he must have been used to since his father used to treat needy and poor children of New York’s East side.
The present work is a preliminary study for a portrait of Colonel Philippe Brideau, commissioned by Duncan Phillips in 1919, and now in The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C. The subject of this portrait, actor Otis Skinner, is depicted here as the self-confident Colonel Philippe Brideau, a character from Émile Fabre's famous 1903 play La Rabouilleuse, which itself is based on the eponymous novel by Honoré de Balzac, published in 1842. In his role as Colonel Brideau, Skinner was praised for delivering what many considered one of the greatest comedic performances of the century. In quick and bold brushstrokes, Luks is able to capture the mischievous demeanor of his subject, who smirks at us with an air of mockery with his rolled-up eyes. By setting Skinner against a neutral background stripped of any props or context, Luks forces the viewer to face and engage with his subject, as if he attended the play and watched Skinner perform. Fabre's work was later adapted into a movie, Honor of the Family, starring Bebe Daniels as Laura and Warren Williams as Captain Boris Barony.