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William J. Glackens

b. 1870, Philadelphia, PA; d. 1938, Westport, CT

In the Luxembourg

Oil on canvas

Framed: 18 1/2 in x 22 3/8 in x 2 1/4 in

Sight: 14 7/8 in x 17 1/4 in

NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale; bequest of Ira D. Glackens
91.40.66

Curator Notes

Highlights from The William J. Glackens Collection in the NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale by Elizabeth Thompson Colleary:

In the Luxembourg was painted in Paris in 1896 during Glackens’s first trip to the city. Unlike other painters who went to Europe to study, Glackens did not enroll in classes; he preferred to sketch local views and study the art on display in museums. During a biking trip to Holland, he saw the paintings of seventeenth-century Dutch painters Frans Hals and Rembrandt van Rijn, and their emphasis on loose brushwork and dramatic light clearly influenced Glackens during these formative years. If Glackens’s painterly style was derivative of seventeenth-century Dutch art, the subjects of the paintings were clearly inspired by the earlier work of the Impressionists and other painters of modern life. Like them, Glackens favored views of Parisian parks, cafés, and theaters.

Glackens most admired the works of Édouard Manet and Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and while In the Luxembourg may in conception be similar to works by them the treatment of the subject – people in a park setting – could not be more different. Whereas the French artists favored crowded foreground scenes, in Glackens’s composition the foreground is an open expanse in which a single female figure rushes toward the viewer. In Glackens’s painting the space opens out to the viewer and the figure about to sweep by, her skirts hiked up so she can move quickly, suggests a narrative. Clearly, in this early work the artist-reporter’s gift for careful, nuanced observation of the human condition emerges, as does his desire for the viewer to become engaged with the subject.

If you would like to reproduce an image of a work of art in NSU Art Museum’s collection, please fill out the Rights and Reproduction contact form. Images may be protected by copyright and other intellectual property rights.

This record is a work in progress. If you have additional information or spotted an error, please send feedback to [email protected].

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