Bernard Goldberg Fine Arts

Provenance:

Estate of the artist

Exhibited:
Gifford Beal, At the Water's Edge, Fishing Paintings from the 1920s and 1930s, Kraushaar Galleries, Inc., New York, October 16 - November 13, 1999, p. 12, illus. in color; Traveled to: Westmoreland Museum of American Art, Greensburg, PA, February 13 - April 16, 2000

Related works:
Sword Fisherman, 1925, Oil on canvas, 36 x 48 inches, Private collection
Sword Fisherman, 1928, Oil on canvas, 36 1/2 x 48 ½ inches, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Gifford Beal was born in the Bronx in 1879, the son of the landscape painter William Reynolds Beal. He was encouraged from an early age to pursue the study and practice of art and by the age of thirteen, alongside his older brother Reynolds, he was attending classes at William Merrit Chase’s Shinnecock School of Art, the first plein air painting school in the United States. He studied with Chase for many years, including at the artist’s studio in Manhattan, while also studying at Princeton University from 1896 to 1900. He continued his education at New York’s Art Students League, where he later became President.

Beal’s work was heavily influenced by Chase’s teaching and work. Another important mentor was the American Impressionist Childe Hassam, a family friend of the Beals. Through these two artists, Beal came to know and appreciate the work of the French Impressionists, from whom all three would adopt various techniques.

It is not easy to define Beal’s style, as he usually adapted his method of working to the subject at hand. His earlier compositions are suffused with an Impressionism closely related to Monet, but as he matured, his work became wholly his own. While not completely separated from Impressionism, Sword Fisherman is a prime example of Beal’s mature work.

Beginning in 1923, Beal began to summer in Rockport, Massachusetts, a location that would become a large part of his oeuvre. In Sword Fisherman, Beal’s evident respect for his subject is quite clear. As in almost all of his work, Beal is not interested in portraiture; he prefers to render the fisherman as an archetype. There is a deliberate simplification of the subject’s features, yet the portrait effectively evokes the figure’s environment and his place within it. There is an heroic aspect to this man: his presence is almost sculptural, given his posture and the generous amount of space around him. Beal renders the figure in muscular, quickly applied strokes that are also tightly controlled.

Beal’s talent as a colorist is on full display in Sword Fisherman. The background is a subtle amalgamation of creamy ivories and whites over a light blue, the sky above and the landscape in the background are painted in a shimmering combination of mauve and brown, while the sea is painted in undulating strokes of mauve, blue and brown.

This palette, and a number of other elements combine to create a dynamic tension in the painting. First, the vigorous brushstrokes, which teeter on the verge of breaking out of the clearly delineated forms. Then there is the composition itself: the harpoon in the man’s hand is parallel to his braced, forward leaning left thigh and also to the plank’s supporting assemblage. And there is the plank on which the fisherman stands in a precarious position, implying the danger of his work, yet his stance remains one of strength and control. Sword Fisherman evokes the dramatic environment of the ocean, the danger of the subject’s occupation, and the bravery required to fulfill it.