CIRCA 1910 OIL PORTRAIT BY ETHEL WICKES- WELL LISTED

" Portrait of a Gentleman ". Oil on stretched linen canvas by Ethel Marian Wickes ( 1872 - 1940 ): signed upper left corner - " Ethel Wickes ": circa 1910/20: canvas/image size: 18 inches by 14 inches: inscribed verso in pencil on the upper stretcher bar - " 6. Exhibited De Young Museum ". framed. 

NOTE: This work is in excellent original condition and is fully guaranteed. ( white lines in my photos are from flash glare on the thick brush stroke ridges only and do not appear on the actual painting ):The oil is framed in its original fine wide period frame: frame size is: 23 x 19 inches.

Best know for her watercolors of geese and flowers, it has only recently become known that Ethel Wickes was also an exceptionally talented avant garde portrait painter. Her portraits from the turn of the century depart from the stiff realism of the period with a more modernist flair, with their spontaneous thick wide strokes, that one associates with the early portrait work of artists such as Robert Henri.

NOTE:  ( Only one oil portrait by Wickes has ever appeared in public auction, a work titled " Portrait of a Greek Sailor ", 16 inches by 20 inches, that sold a Bonhams auction London on 29 April, 2003 for $1,429 ( 900 BP ): Mostly watercolors appear in the salesrooms, the better ones of geese doing very well ( " Geese at Water's Edge, watercolor 7 3/4 x 12 1/2 inches sold for $1,600 at Northeast Auction 18 May, 2003. ).

Born in Hempstead, Long Island, New York on Feb. 13, 1872, Wickes moved with her family to northern California in 1886.  She began painting while in her early teens. Wickes traveled abroad and studied oil and watercolor portrait painting in Paris at the Academie Colarossi with Gustave Claude Courtois (1853-1923), Louis Auguste Girardot, (1856-1933), and Rene Francois Xavier Prinet (1861-1946) and briefly at the Academie Julian with William Adolphe Bouguereau (1825-1905) and Gabriel Ferrier (1847-1914).  She also studied under Laureano Barrau (1863-1957). it was). While in Europe she sketched in Holland, England, and Ireland.  She then returned to San Francisco where she remained except during 1907-09, when she lived in Pacific Grove and during 1911 when she was in Seattle to place murals in the Florence Henry Memorial Chapel. 

An activist in womens groups, at the time of her death in San Francisco on Feb. 27, 1940 Wickes headed the art section of the California State Federation of Women's Clubs. 

Wickes held her first exhibition at the William Morris Gallery, New York (1890) when she was eighteen.  Her many one woman exhibitions include the Garden Club, Newport, Rhode Island (1919, 1920); Boston, Massachusetts (1920); Spring Blossom and Wild Flower Show and Pageant Tea, San Francisco (1923); Fairmont Hotel, San Francisco (1925); Rabjohn and Morcom Galleries, San Francisco (1925); Thomas Welton Art Gallery, Stanford University, Palo Alto (1925); Willard Worden Galleries, San Francisco (1926, 1927, 1929); Nevada State University, Reno, Nevada (c. 1929); Tamalpias Centere Woman's Club, San Rafael (1929); Everhardt Museum, Scranton, Pennsylvania (1929, 1930); University of California, Berkeley (1933); M. H. de Young Museum, San Francisco (1933, 1940); Flower Show of the Hollywood Knolls Flower Club, Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, Hollywood (1935, 1938, 1939); Three Rivers Club, Woodland (1939); Chico State College, Chico (1939); Beverly Hills High School, Beverly Hills (1939); Bel Air Garden Club, The Sycamores, Bel Air (1939); and San Bernardino Valley Junior College, San Bernardino (1939).

Her works have been shown in group exhibitions at the Fresno Arts Center Gallery, San Francisco; Mechanics Institute Fair, San Francisco (1890); San Francisco Art Association, San Francisco (1898, 1900, 1901, 1916); Kennedy-Rabjohn Art Company, San Francisco (1900); William Morris Art Dealer, San Francisco (1900); California State Fair (California State Agricultural Society), Sacramento (1900, 1902, 1917); Washington Art Association, Seattle, Washington (1911, 1913); Rabjohn Galleries, San Francisco (1917); Western Arts Association, San Francisco (1922); California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco (1936-1939); Golden Gate International Exposition, San Francisco (1939) where she was awarded a Certificate of Merit for her exhibit; and the Huntington Library, San Marino (1978, 1979). 

REF: Kovinick: Encyclopedia of Women Artists: Falk: Who Was who in American Art: Petteys: International Dictionary of Women Artists: Saur: Artists of the World: Hughes: Artists in California: Dawdy: Artists of the American West: McNeil: Artists Biographies: Mallet: Index of Artists.

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