American Provincetown Modernist Frank Carson Signed Oil - Prices To $5, 000
Item History & Price
Frank Carson was founder and director of the Provincetown School of Art in 1918 and taught from 1918 until 1933. He exhibited annually at the Provincetown Art Association from 1919 to 1934 apart from 1921, 1927, and 1932. Carson also showed with the Boston Society of Independent Artists. It was here that he was exposed to and influenced by a group known as The Four Boston Painters – Maurice Prendergast, Carl Gordon Cutler, Charles Hovey Pepper, and E. Ambrose Webster, who also ran an art school in Provincetown. Carson not only followed Webster’s color theory but followed in his footsteps to Bermuda where he painted and taught while he escaped the harsh New England winter weather. A retrospective of his work was held at the Provincetown Art Association and Museum in 1997.Nancy W. Paine Smith refers to Carson as a “star” among the “hundred present” in her 1927 publication, A Book About the Artists PROVINCETOWN. Carson also had one-person shows at the Copley Society of Boston, the Washington Art Club, and the University of Washington. His pieces have been exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy of The Fine Arts and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.The frame is almost certainly original and bears 4 stamps on stretcher for WadsworthHowland & Co, Boston. There is craquelure throughout, most prominent on the sea as shown. The canvas is quite thin in places and I highly recommend that the painting should be relined as soon as possible. There are two very small holes, one at the right-hand side base of the church and a much smaller one bottom left which will require a minor retouch.
There are auction records over $5, 000 for oil paintings by the artist and this painting shows the colorist skills of this fine artist at his peak.