In The Cher at Montrichard, Folinsbee’s attention appears to have been drawn to the verdant trees and foliage along the riverside, and the village buildings clustered along the shore, all captured from a slightly elevated perspective. The artist’s tapestry-like brushwork enlivens the scene, as a lone figure tends to his boat in the foreground and the sun’s rays cast warm shadows among the greenery and sparkling reflections on the water. While Folinsbee’s interest in Cezanne revealed itself in other views of the region, the play of light in The Cher at Montrichard is decidedly impressionist in quality and reveals his embrace of the spirited strokes of high-keyed color he had witnessed when working with Brinley a decade earlier.

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Folinsbee earned numerous awards throughout his very prolific career from venues including the Salmagundi Club, the Pennsylvania Academy, the Connecticut Academy of Fine Arts, the National Arts Club, and several prizes from the National Academy alone between 1916 and 1952. Museums eagerly acquired examples of his work during his lifetime, and today his paintings can be found in the collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, the Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, Virginia, the Ogunquit Museum of American Art in Maine, and the Dallas Museum of Art, among many others.

Provenance:

By descent through the family of the artist

Inscription:

(top stretcher, in faded red ink) THE CHER AT MONTRICHARD

Labels:

1. (handwritten label) J. Folinsbee / The Cher at / Montrichard / 24 x 30 / $750
2. (card) Exhibit #55. / The Cher at Montrichard / Oil / 24” x 30”
3. Macbeth Gallery, New York, stamp, with handwritten 2967
4. Newman Galleries / Artist: Folinsbee, John F. Reg. No. 18505 C / Title: “The Cher at Montrichard” Size: 24 x 30 / NFS
5. Ogunquit Museum of American Art / Loan / The Art of John Folinsbee / July 1 – August 21, 2001
    

Literature:

Jensen, Kirsten M. Folinsbee Considered. Hudson Hills Press, 2013, p. 249, catalogue entry
 

Exhibitions:

1. John Folinsbee: Another View, Newman Galleries, Philadelphia, April 8 – 30, 1994, no. 55
2. The Art of John Folinsbee, Ogunquit Museum of American Art, Ogunquit, Maine, July – August 2001, no. 7