|
ALICE HOBBS BOLTON COUTTS
(1879 - 1973)
"Through the Trees"
Original 1950s Oil on Canvas
MID CENTURY MODERN PACIFIC LANDSCAPE
Excellent Vintage Condition Signed Lower Left Matted and Framed in Hardwood Frame
24" x 20" Bold and Vivid Colors with Impasto Brushwork. Email with any questions.....thank you. Born in England in 1879, Alice Hobbs is best known for her paintings of landscapes, seascapes, still life subjects and most notably, Indian children. Her work shows the influence of one of her teachers, Grace Carpenter Hudson with whom her work was sometimes confused.
As a child, she was taken to Melbourne, Australia by her parents, Charles and Maria Hobbs. there she entered many art contests and built some notoriety during her time there. Later her art studies continued in earnest when, as a teenager she was accepted to the Academie Julian in Paris, under Jules Lefebvre. After returning to Australia while still quite young, she married artist Gordon Coutts, who was an instructor at the Art Society of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. Without her parents' approval she married him in San Francisco in 1904, and the next year they went on a world tour. Then they moved to San Francisco in 1906, but lost everything in the earthquake and fire. This included a large collection of Alice's earlier paintings. Though she contained to paint, this is one reason why fewer of her works exist today.
The couple moved across the Bay to Piedmont, and in 1911, went on another extended trip through Europe and the Hawaiian Islands, but returned to America because of World War I. In 1917, they divorced. Alice testified in Reno that her husband's artistic temperament was too much for her. She said she could not live happily with him because he was a hermit. The next year Alice married Frederick Bolton, and they lived in the Piedmont home, which ruffled a few feathers.
However, her most productive time as an artist was during her first marriage, and committed to painting first hand, she traveled among California and Southwest Indians, camping with the Hopi of Northern Arizona and living with the Pomo Indians of northern California. After 1918, she became increasingly reclusive, although she and her husband traveled to the Orient and Europe, and she continued to sketch for her own pleasure. A nephew reported that she got a special gas ration card during World War II so she could continue traveling to painting locations. However, she discontinued most of her public painting activity for the last fifty years of her life.
Her works were part of the exhibition at the Mark Hopkins Institute lost in the fire of 1906. One of her paintings, The Jockey, was on the cover of Sunset Magazine in 1910. She exhibited work at the San Francisco Art Association and the Sequoia Club in San Francisco, and had one-person exhibits in 1910 and 1911 at the now legendary Gump's Department Store.
She passed away in 1973 having led a colorful life filled with art.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Email or Text any Questions.....thank you.
Due to special packing necessities for framed art items, shipping times may take a few days longer depending on the item and shipping destination location. Email through for more information.
|