Aaron Bastian
Director
Lot 45
Frank Tenney Johnson(1874-1939)An Idle Dreamer 24 1/4 x 30 in. framed 29 x 35 in.
1 November 2022, 10:00 PDT
Los AngelesSold for US$239,775 inc. premium
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Frank Tenney Johnson (1874-1939)
An Idle Dreamer
signed and dated 'F. Tenney Johnson - N.A. / 1938' and signed and dated again and titled (on the stretcher bar)
oil on canvas
24 1/4 x 30 in.
framed 29 x 35 in.
signed and dated 'F. Tenney Johnson - N.A. / 1938' and signed and dated again and titled (on the stretcher bar)
oil on canvas
24 1/4 x 30 in.
framed 29 x 35 in.
Footnotes
Provenance
The artist.
Biltmore Salon, Los Angeles, California, from the above.
H. N. Berger, San Marino, California, 1951, from the above.
Christie's, Los Angeles, October 28, 1999, lot 135.
Altermann Galleries, Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Private collection, California.
Gerald Peters Gallery, Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Acquired by the present owner from the above, 2003.
Exhibited
Los Angeles, Biltmore Salon, F. Tenney Johnson, N. A. Paintings, November 1-November 30, 1938, no. 8.
We wish to thank Melissa Webster Speidel for her kind assistance in cataloging the lot. This artwork is included in the catalogue raisonné database Melissa Webster Speidel is compiling of the artist's oil paintings.
Frank Tenney Johnson's works are immediately recognizable for the romantic and sympathetic aesthetic he imbues in solitary depictions of cowboys on the Western range. In An Idle Dreamer, a single seated cowboy and his horse are shown in a moment of calm, positioned close together, each in three-quarter view. The pair are silhouetted against a rugged and rocky Western landscape, near a steep canyon, and painted with introspective expressions. At the height of Johnson's successful career, he built a log cabin and studio in Wyoming on the Rim Rock Ranchlands owned by his cousin. Located near the East gate of Yellowstone Park on the North fork of the Shoshone River, he spent summers there from 1931 to 1938 painting works like the present painting, and hiking in the pristine Western landscape.
In An Idle Dreamer, Johnson's skill at executing light filtered through the day's extremes is on display, with the figural group painted in dusk tones, while long shadows in the foreground landscape give way to a dramatic end of day sunlit sky. Johnson varies his brushwork as well, subtly focusing further attention on the figural vignette with tight brushwork, fine detail and saturated color, while the landscape is executed in broad and looser layers of natural hues. Johnson's works, like An Idle Dreamer are celebrated for their emotional sensitivity to an individual's isolation within - and despite - the vastness of the Western range.