Nicholas Brewer (American, 1857-1949). Landscape painting in oil on canvas titled "San Joaquin Hills," depicting the verdant, dramatic hills near Laguna beach. Signed and dated 1921 along the lower right.

Lot Essay:
Born in a log cabin in Minnesota in 1857, Nicholas Brewerís work typifies his frontier spirit and love for the American landscape. He grew up on a farm, where his days were defined by hard work, but he still found the time to draw and paint in between chores. At the age of 18, he moved to St. Paul. He received some art training there from Henry Koempel, a local painter and decorator, and ended up marrying Koempelís daughter. He eked out a living for his swiftly growing family through portrait commissions and teaching.

In 1885, Brewer first traveled to New York, determined to make it as a serious artist. He received a small amount of training there; however, he remained primarily self-taught. He began receiving some success in New York, and continued spending winters there for much of his career. His work was included in several exhibitions, and he was inducted into the illustrious Salmagundi Club. In his later career, he traveled the United States, giving traveling lectures and exhibitions, as well as taking portrait commissions wherever he went. During one productive visit to Washington D.C., Brewer even painted a portrait of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

The main reason for his travels, though, was his love of the American landscape. Although Brewer was never able to fully make a living by landscape painting, it remained his true passion. His agrarian upbringing left him with a sense of reverence for the earth, and he delighted in experimenting with colors and textures to best capture the mood of a landscape. He paid particular heed to the flora he passed by, from the solemn Minnesota prairie grasses to southern blue bonnets to the tiny patches of scrub grass clinging to vertiginous California cliffs. His paintings rarely depict specific places; Brewer instead preferred to paint landscapes that he felt represented an ideal, more the spirit than the actuality of a location. Nevertheless, his travels provided him with a rich backdrop upon which to base his works.

"San Joaquin Hills" was painted on one such trip, to California in 1921. The work depicts the hills around Laguna Beach. However, it depicts a humble view of the hills, with the larger ridge a blur in the background, and the foreground a rolling hill dotted with trees that would not look out of place in the midwest. While the impression of scale is somewhat muted, the colors are far from it. The grass on the hillside is a bright, electric green, and the ridge in the background is a mass of vivid teal and indigo with highlights in a dusty pink that reflects the pink of the skies.

This painting is notable among Brewerís work for its strong sense of temporality. The clouds are rolling in over the hills, as if a storm is about to start, and the tree in the foreground appears to bend slightly in the wind. The viewer is left with the impression that this bright, sunny landscape will shortly be altered into something quite different. The sketchy nature of the painting adds to the impression that it depicts a definite moment in time, an unusual quality in a Brewer painting. Certainly it is possible that this was a sketch painted en plein air, as Brewer created many sketches while outdoors sightseeing during his time in California. Regardless of whether it was painted from a scene in front of Brewer, or one reconstructed later in a studio, it perfectly captures the mood of a bright hillside, and the fleeting bliss of Brewerís trip to California.
Unframed; height: 20 1/2 in x width: 24 in. Framed; height: 25 3/4 in x width: 29 3/4 in. Please contact us for a detailed condition report. Please note that the lack of a condition statement does not imply perfect condition. Email condition@revereauctions.com with any condition questions.