A delightful impressionist oil painting of a young lady on a hillside picking flowers by American artist Charles Courtney Curran (1861-1942). Curran was born in Hartford, Kentucky, studying one year at the Cincinnati School of Design, then began a distinguished career when he moved to New York City in 1882 and enrolled in the National Academy of Design, studying under Walter Satterlee. He then enrolled as a student at the Art Students' League and later at the Academie Julian in Paris. The French artist Jules Bastien-Lepage was a source of inspiration for Curran with his paintings of peasants as a common subject matter. From 1887 to 1935, he exhibited regularly at the Pennsylvania Academy. In 1903, artist Frederick Dellenbaugh invited Curran to Cragsmoor, an art center in the Hudson River Valley, where he became a leader at the Cragsmoor Art Colony, and often taught art and painting. Curran was known as a prolific artist who created light-filled paintings, often of young women, as well as an impressionist figure, genre, and landscape painter.
Oil on canvas, signed and dated 15 lower right, title inscribed on verso “Laurel Hill” with artist’s NYC address, as well as with the following; “This canvas was made for James McNeil Whistler and was presented to Lawton Parker who in turn gave it to Charles C Curran”. Housed in a decorative giltwood frame. Dimensions: 14.25 in H x 12 in W, actual; 17 in H x 14.75 in W, framed. Ref: 8