Henry George Keller (1869-1949)

SOLD

Lady on a Hillside with her Parasol and Billowing Scarf
Watercolor on paper
19 ½” h x 12 ½” w
Signed and dated (at lower left): H. G. Keller /1907

Like many other mid-western artists, Henry George Keller studied in Germany; first at the Art Academy in Karlsruhe in 1890 and subsequently in Dusseldorf and Munich for a three year stint between 1899 and 1902. Upon his return to Cleveland he began painting and teaching at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh and then the Cleveland School of Art where he was a faculty member until 1945.

Keller was a talented artist who was a celebrated watercolorist as well as crusader for avant-garde art in America. He exhibited at the influential Armory Show and like many other Modernists explored color theory and music in his own work. Keller was instrumental in bringing an exhibition of French Cubist paintings to Cleveland in 1913.

Lady on a Hillside with her Parasol and Billowing Scarf, is an excellent example of Keller’s early style and his superb watercolor technique. One is reminded of watercolors by John Singer Sargent. A few years later, Keller became a full-fledged Modernist and schooled one of America’s pre-eminent Modernist watercolorists, Charles Burchfield at the Cleveland Academy of Art.