Abraham Jacob Bogdanove
"Heavy Sea"
1920-30

Name: "Heavy Sea"
Brand: Abraham Jacob Bogdanove
Price: 25000 USD
Availability: InStock

About the Item

Signed LR, View of Gull Rock - Monhegan Born in Minsk, Russia, Abraham Bogdanove was a landscape, seascape and portrait painter who is best known for his images of Monhegan Island, off the coast of Maine. He also painted in Europe and in Canada at the Gaspe Peninsula. Bogdanove studied in New York at the Art Students League, Cooper Union, the National Academy of Design, and Columbia University School of Architecture where he trained with and was studio assistant to the noted muralist, Francis Millet. Between 1913 and 1930, Bogdanove completed numerous murals including historical scenes relating to the founding of America and commissions for numerous New York area school. During this time, he was devoting much time to his fine-art painting. He visited Maine for the first time in 1915, when he spent a summer at Seal Harbor on Mount Desert Island. There he was inspired by the dramatic vistas of mountains plunging to the sea that had been painted by Frederic E. Church and Fitz Hugh Lane, and participated in the town’s social scene to which he was introduced by his friend, Clara Clemens, the daughter of Mark Twain. At the afternoon teas she hosted, Bogdanove met John D. Rockefeller and the actor John Barrymore, among others. By 1918, the refinements of summer life on Mount Desert had lost their attraction for Bogdanove, and seeking a rougher locale, he found his way to Monhegan, a tiny island seventeen miles off the midcoast of Maine. Instead of mountainous scenery, Monhegan offered a compact and varied landscape, unique among the hundreds of islands that dot Maine’s coastal waters. Less than two miles long and a mile wide, the island includes a picturesque harbor lined with fish houses, rolling meadows, pine woods, and cliffs soaring two hundred feet above the open ocean. Among the other artists who had spent time on Monhegan were Robert Henri, George Bellows, Rockwell Kent, and Edward Hopper, and on the island, Bogdanove joined a colony of artists who sought to escape the urban world for a remote and picturesque locale that was highly paintable. On the island, Bogdanove found a subject worthy of sustained focus. After a captivating first encounter, he returned every summer for the rest of his life. In 1935, he expressed his delight in his time on Monhegan, stating: "There are a number of reasons why I prefer Monhegan to all other places on the Atlantic Coast. It is so far from the mainland that we are not disturbed by the outer world and there are no social demands. The cliffs here are so bold and precipitous and the studies offered by the island shore so inexhaustible. The climate suits me. Perhaps because it is more like that of Russia, where my ancestors lived. " For twenty-two years he taught drawing, painting, and anatomy at the New York School of Industrial Art, and from 1919 to 1942 at City College of New York. Following his retirement in 1942, he moved to Dunbarton, New Hampshire. He exhibited widely including at the Metropolitan Museum, the National Academy of Design, and the Corcoran Gallery of Art.

Creator:

Abraham Jacob Bogdanove (1887-1946, American)

Creation Year:

1920-30

Dimensions:

Height: 27 in (68.58 cm)Width: 33 in (83.82 cm)Depth: 2 in (5.08 cm)

Medium:

Oil,Panel

Movement & Style:

Impressionist

Period:

20th Century