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Lot Essay
Louis Riman’s An Improvised Flower Basket is an enchanting mosaic of colors and patterns capturing a quiet, private moment in a garden. It was likely painted in the rural French village of Giverny, the site of a lively artist colony inspired by Claude Monet where Ritman first spent the summer in 1911. This visit proved to be a major turning point in his career, and he would return to Giverny every summer for the next twenty years. There he painted in the company of other American Impressionists, notably Frederick Frieseke, John Leslie Breck, Theodore Robinson and Richard E. Miller.
Born in Russia, Ritman immigrated as a child to the United States, where his family settled in Chicago. He studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and later for a short period with William Merritt Chase in Philadelphia. In 1909 he felt the romantic pull of Paris and went to study at the Académie Julian and the École des Beaux-Arts, absorbing the academic methods of the time. His career dramatically changed course after a chance encounter with Frieseke at a Parisian café in which Frieseke invited him to summer in Giverny. Ritman accepted and was immediately inspired by the light, landscape and the creative atmosphere of the American Impressionist community there. Frieseke became Ritman's mentor and close friend and gave the younger artist access to his celebrated garden, studio and house, which was next door to Monet’s. Similar to Frieseke's finest works, Ritman's garden paintings reflect the simple, everyday life and tranquil delight of sunshine and flowers.
An Improvised Flower Basket is a stunning example of the style, subject and palette that characterize the work of the artists painting in Giverny during the period. The dappled sun shining through the trees creates a beautiful mosaic pattern on the ground, a technique that Ritman might have learned from the French master Pierre-August Renoir. Ritman was often reluctant to treat his figures with the same loose impressionistic style as his flowers and landscape. Richard Love notes, “Apparently young Ritman had simply spent too many hours learning how to paint the figure, especially the female one, to abandon his salon manner overnight.” (Louis Ritman: From Chicago to Giverny, Chicago, Illinois, 1989, p. 163). However, An Improvised Flower Basket is an exception in that the figure blends more successfully into the landscape than in his earlier garden scenes. Love writes, “The figure of the woman is more harmoniously integrated into this multi-textured scene than in other works from this period because her dress also shows a patterned fabric, and it is sun-dappled like the lawn; the figure is executed with a more sophisticated brushwork, which tends to serve as a convenient transition from the lawn to the flowers—indeed, in this way she stands as a subtle vertical element between these areas and as such is an understated focal point. This is one of Ritman’s best early garden scenes.” (Louis Ritman: From Chicago to Giverny, p. 164)
Born in Russia, Ritman immigrated as a child to the United States, where his family settled in Chicago. He studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and later for a short period with William Merritt Chase in Philadelphia. In 1909 he felt the romantic pull of Paris and went to study at the Académie Julian and the École des Beaux-Arts, absorbing the academic methods of the time. His career dramatically changed course after a chance encounter with Frieseke at a Parisian café in which Frieseke invited him to summer in Giverny. Ritman accepted and was immediately inspired by the light, landscape and the creative atmosphere of the American Impressionist community there. Frieseke became Ritman's mentor and close friend and gave the younger artist access to his celebrated garden, studio and house, which was next door to Monet’s. Similar to Frieseke's finest works, Ritman's garden paintings reflect the simple, everyday life and tranquil delight of sunshine and flowers.
An Improvised Flower Basket is a stunning example of the style, subject and palette that characterize the work of the artists painting in Giverny during the period. The dappled sun shining through the trees creates a beautiful mosaic pattern on the ground, a technique that Ritman might have learned from the French master Pierre-August Renoir. Ritman was often reluctant to treat his figures with the same loose impressionistic style as his flowers and landscape. Richard Love notes, “Apparently young Ritman had simply spent too many hours learning how to paint the figure, especially the female one, to abandon his salon manner overnight.” (Louis Ritman: From Chicago to Giverny, Chicago, Illinois, 1989, p. 163). However, An Improvised Flower Basket is an exception in that the figure blends more successfully into the landscape than in his earlier garden scenes. Love writes, “The figure of the woman is more harmoniously integrated into this multi-textured scene than in other works from this period because her dress also shows a patterned fabric, and it is sun-dappled like the lawn; the figure is executed with a more sophisticated brushwork, which tends to serve as a convenient transition from the lawn to the flowers—indeed, in this way she stands as a subtle vertical element between these areas and as such is an understated focal point. This is one of Ritman’s best early garden scenes.” (Louis Ritman: From Chicago to Giverny, p. 164)