Lot 50
50
Frank Tenney Johnson (1874-1939)
Property from the Collection of Lois and Harry Horvitz
Frank Tenney Johnson (1874-1939)

Through the Starlit Hours

Details
Frank Tenney Johnson (1874-1939)
Through the Starlit Hours
signed and dated 'F. Tenney Johnson ANA/1935' (lower left)--signed and dated again and inscribed with title (on the stretcher)
oil on canvas
25 x 30 1/8 in. (63.5 x 76.5 cm.)
Painted in 1935.
Provenance
Harold McCracken, Cody, Wyoming, by 1974.
Biltmore Galleries, Scottsdale, Arizona.
Acquired by the late owners from the above, 1990.
Literature
A.M. Cook, "F. Tenny [sic] Johnson's Art on Display; Boyhood Ambition Realized," Los Angeles Herald, November 6, 1935 (as Through Starlit Hours).
"Frank Tenney Johnson Represents the Great West," Saturday Night, November 6, 1935 (as Through Starlight Hours).
H. McCracken, The American Cowboy, Garden City, New York, 1973, p. 161, illustrated.
H. McCracken, The Frank Tenney Johnson Book: A Master Painter of the Old West, Garden City, New York, 1974, p. 199, illustrated.
Exhibited
Los Angeles, California, The Biltmore Hotel, Biltmore Salon, Under Western Skies, November 4-30, 1935, no. 9.

Lot Essay

In a review of the 1935 Biltmore Salon exhibition in which the present work was included, Los Angeles Herald critic Alma May Cook praised, "In the exhibition opening this week Mr. Johnson has 16 canvases, all breathing the western life that is slowly giving way to 'civilization'...'Lure of the Rockies' might be termed a fulfillment of his childhood dreams, as might also the canvas entitled 'Through Starlit Hours,' for he has achieved the dream of his childhood and become not only a cowboy, but a painter of cowboy life." (November 6, 1935) The reviewer for Saturday Night similarly acclaimed the exhibition, writing, "Frank Tenney Johnson, A.N.A, and the Biltmore Salon should be put in the guide books as among our chief attractions during the current month...Break away from the world of spare tires and monoxide gas. Trail the footsteps of one of the few remaining cowboy painters. Through the magic of his art you follow the clock around from 'Morning Clouds' to eight adventures in mountain moonlight." (November 6, 1935)

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