Niles Pond embodies a more tranquil aspect of Gloucester, a favorite seaside destination for artists, and demonstrates Peterson’s vivid summertime palette and her masterful handling of the oil medium, particularly in the impasto lily pads in the foreground and the mesmerizing shades of blue in the water. Featured in two publications about Peterson, including J. Jonathan Joseph’s 1981 monograph Jane Peterson: An American Artist, which helped bring the artist’s work to the forefront fifteen years after her passing, this painting is a powerful example of her vivacious technique and compositional prowess.

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While her individual paintings earned numerous prizes at exhibitions throughout her career, Peterson’s contribution to the advancement of American art was celebrated by the American Historical Society in 1938, when they named her ‘outstanding individual of the year’ (only the second woman to be so named), and by the Allied Artists of America, who presented the Testimonial Award in 1952. Today her spirited depictions of her favorite painting grounds and beloved flowers can be found in museum collections across the country, including the Metropolitan Museum, the Brooklyn Museum, the Pennsylvania Academy, the San Diego Museum of Art, the Terra Foundation for American Art in Chicago, and in Washington, DC, at both the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden and the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

Provenance:

The artist

To private collection of her friend, Ipswich, Massachusetts

To private collection, California, 1969 to present

Labels:

1. (handwritten at top stretcher) –7 Yellow + Turquoise / $500 / Artist Jane Peterson / 1007 Fifth Ave / NY City
2. Hirschl & Adler, New York, New York / Stock No.: APG 21097D / Artist: Peterson, Jane (1876-1965) / Title: Niles Pond (Yellow and Turquoise) / Medium: Oil on canvas / Size: 32” x 32” / Date: (blank) / (handwritten in upper right corner) (F) B-24

Literature:

1. Joseph, J. Jonathan. Jane Peterson, An American Artist (Boston, MA, 1981), illus. p. 77
2. Roznoy, Cynthia, & Nichols, Arlene Katz. Jane Peterson: At Home and Abroad. (Waterbury, CT: Mattatuck Museum, 2017), illus. p viii