08 Classic Works of Art, Marine Paintings - With Footnotes, #39

Charles Edward Dixon, (British, 1872-1934)

'Oak, Hemp, and Powder, Trafalgar, 1805' , c. /1920' (lower right)

Gouache

118.5 x 241cm (46 5/8 x 94 7/8in)
Private collection

The Battle of Trafalgar (21 October 1805) was a naval engagement fought by the British Royal Navy against the combined fleets of the French and Spanish Navies, during the War of the Third Coalition (August–December 1805) of the Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815).

Twenty-seven British ships of the line led by Admiral Lord Nelson aboard HMS Victory defeated thirty-three French and Spanish ships of the line under the French Admiral Villeneuve in the Atlantic off the southwest coast of Spain, just west of Cape Trafalgar, in Caños de Meca. The Franco-Spanish fleet lost twenty-two ships, without a single British vessel being lost. It was the most decisive naval battle of the war, conclusively ending French plans to invade England.

The British victory spectacularly confirmed the naval supremacy that Britain had established during the eighteenth century and was achieved in part through Nelson's departure from the prevailing naval tactical orthodoxy. 

Nelson was shot by a French musketeer during the battle and died shortly after, becoming one of Britain's greatest war heroes. Villeneuve was captured along with his ship Bucentaure. Admiral Federico Gravina, the senior Spanish flag officer, escaped with the remnant of the fleet and succumbed months later to wounds sustained during the battle. Villeneuve attended Nelson's funeral while a captive on parole in Britain. The Battle of Trafalgar

Charles Edward Dixon (8 December 1872 - 12 September 1934) was a British maritime painter of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, whose work was highly successful and regularly exhibited at the Royal Academy. Several of his paintings are held by the National Maritime Museum and he was a regular contributing artist to magazines and periodicals. He lived at Itchenor in Sussex and died in 1934. More on Charles Edward Dixon

Charles Edward Dixon, (British, 1872-1934)

The Trafalgar off Greenwich , 1932

Watercolour and bodycolour

52 x 75.5cm
Private collection

Greenwich is located within the Royal Borough of Greenwich, to which it lends its name. Notable for its maritime history and for giving its name to the Greenwich Meridian and Greenwich Mean Time. 

The town became a popular resort in the 18th century. The maritime connections of Greenwich were celebrated in the 20th century, with the siting of the Cutty Sark and Gipsy Moth IV next to the river front, and the National Maritime Museum in the former buildings of the Royal Hospital School in 1934. Greenwich formed part of Kent until 1889 when the County of London was created. More on Greenwich

Charles Edward Dixon, (British, 1872-1934), see above

Hayley Lever, 1876 - 1958
GLOUCESTER HARBOR
Oil on canvas laid down on Masonite
13 by 16 inches, (33 by 40.6 cm)
Private collection

Gloucester, on Cape Ann in Essex County, Massachusetts, in the United States. It is part of Massachusetts' North Shore.  An important center of the fishing industry and a popular summer destination, Gloucester consists of an urban core on the north side of the harbor and the outlying neighborhoods. More on Gloucester

Richard Hayley Lever (28 September 1875 – 6 December 1958) was an Australian-American painter, etcher, lecturer and art teacher. Lever was born in Bowden, South Australia. He excelled in painting classes at Prince Alfred College, and on leaving school continued to study at his Norwood art school. He was a charter member of the Adelaide Easel Club in 1892.

An inheritance was sufficient for Lever to finance a trip to England in 1899 to further his career in painting. He moved to St. Ives. The town's reputation as a centre for marine painting. He studied painting techniques under the Impressionists Olsson and Algernon Talmage. Lever also painted in the French port villages of Douarnenez and Concarneau, Brittany.

In late 1904 Lever made a trip back to Adelaide, where he staged several exhibitions, painted seascapes and taught. In 1906 he returned to Europe 

In 1911, an Impressionist painter, persuaded Lever to move to America, saying he would have greater success there. From 1919 to 1931, Lever taught art classes at the Art Students League of New York. Lever went to Pittsburgh in 1922 as an art juror for the Carnegie International exhibition.

In 1924, Lever was commissioned to paint a portrait of the presidential yacht, Mayflower, which was subsequently presented to President Calvin Coolidge. By 1930, Lever had moved to Caldwell, New Jersey, staying there until 1938, when he moved to Mount Vernon, New York. While living in New York, Lever painted marines and landscapes in New Jersey, Vermont, New England, New York and the Canadian Maritimes. Throughout his life, he traveled and painted extensively, including Nova Scotia and Grand Manan Island in Canada, the Bahamas and Florida, while often returning to Europe. In 1933, Hayley was named Director of the Green Mountains summer art school at Smugglers Notch, Stowe Vermont. Lever also taught painting classes at the Forum School of Art in Bronxville, New York from 1934 to 1935. More on Richard Hayley Lever

Louis Charles Moeller, 1855 - 1930
DISCUSSING THE CATCH
Oil on canvas
12 by 16 inches, (30.5 by 40.6 cm)
Private collection

Louis Charles Moeller (born in New York City, 5 August 1855; died in Weehawken, New Jersey, 1930) was a United States genre painter. He was the son of a decorative painter, with whom he served a three years' apprenticeship. He then studied painting in New York, and in Munich. His meager resources obligated him to return from Munich back home to New York in 1883, where he again devoted himself to decorative painting.

The year of his return, he sent “A Girl in a Snow-Storm” to the National Academy of Design. His second work, “Puzzled,” gained him the Hallgarten Prize, and election as an associate to the National Academy in 1884. He was made a National Academician in 1895. More on Louis Charles Moeller

William Trost Richards, 1833 - 1905
EBBING TIDE, c. 1891
 oil on canvas
20 1/2 by 40 1/2 inches, (52.1 by 102.9 cm)
Private collection

William Trost Richards (June 3, 1833 – November 8, 1905) was an American landscape artist. He was associated with both the Hudson River School and the American Pre-Raphaelite movement. He was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Between 1850 and 1855 he studied part-time with the German artist Paul Weber while working as designer and illustrator of ornamental metalwork. Richards first public showing was part of an exhibition in New Bedford, Massachusetts, organized by artist Albert Bierstadt in 1858.

In 1862 he was elected honorary member of the National Academy of Design and Academician in 1871. In 1863, he became a member of the Association of the Advanced of Truth in Art, an American Pre-Raphaelite group. In 1866, he departed for Europe for one year. Upon his return and for the following six years he spent the summers on the East Coast.

In the 1870s, he produced many acclaimed watercolor views of the White Mountains, several of which are now in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Richards exhibited at the National Academy of Design from 1861 to 1899, and at the Brooklyn Art Association from 1863 to 1885. He was elected a full member of the National Academy in 1871.

He died on April 17, 1905 in Newport, Rhode Island. More on William Trost Richards

Francis Augustus Silva, 1835 - 1886
LATE AFTERNOON
Oil on canvas
18 by 30 inches, (45.8 by 76.2 cm)
Private collection

Francis Augustus Silva, 1835 - 1886; was born in New York City in 1835. Silva never received formal training as an artist but manifested artistic talent from an early age. At thirteen he exhibited ink drawings at the Annual Fair of the American Institute of the City of New York. He set up his first studio in 1858, but his career as a painter was put on hold when he joined the New York militia and served in the Civil War. In 1868, Silva was discharged from the military. The same year, he had his first exhibit at the National Academy of Design, which marked the start of his painting career. 

Throughout most of the 1870s Silva kept a studio in New York City and took frequent painting trips along the East Coast. He developed his brand of dramatically lit, atmospheric Luminism from painting marine subjects  His fondness for harbor views surrounding his native city was evidenced in the boat and shipwreck scenes of Brooklyn and Long Island he exhibited at the Brooklyn Art Association exhibitions (1869–1885). Around 1880 Silva moved to Long Branch, New Jersey but kept a studio in the famous Tenth Street Studio Building in New York City. He painted scenes along the New Jersey coasts until his death in 1886. More on Francis Augustus Silva

Francis Augustus Silva, 1835 - 1886
EARLY MOONRISE, CONEY ISLAND
Oil on canvas
12 by 20 inches
(30.5 by 50.8 cm)
Private collection

Francis Augustus Silva, 1835 - 1886, see above

Emil Carlsen, 1853 - 1932
BREAKERS, c. 1908
Oil on canvas
28 by 34 inches, (71.1 by 86.3 cm)
Private collection

Soren Emil Carlsen (October 19, 1853 – January 2, 1932, New York City, U.S.) was an American Impressionist painter who emigrated to the United States from Denmark. He became known for his still lifes. In an era when many artists succumbed to the pressure resulting from The Armory Show to follow modernistic "developments" Carlsen remained faithful to his inborn aesthetic sense. Later in his career Carlsen expanded his range of subjects and becoming known for landscapes and marines as well.

During his long career he won many of the most important honors in American art and was elected to membership in the National Academy of Design. For more than forty years he was also a respected teacher in Chicago, San Francisco and New York. More on Soren Emil Carlsen

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