Paintings I love
John Leslie Breck (American, 1860-1899)
Garden, Ironbound Island, Maine
oil on canvas, 72.4 x 123.2 cm.
Painted circa 1896.
Private collection
Garden, Ironbound Island, Maine is the most ambitious work John Leslie Breck created during his five week stay on the small, privately owned island Ironbound, off the coast of Mt. Desert in Maine. Ironbound was owned by fellow American Impressionist and member of the artist’s group The St. Botolph Club, Dwight Blaney, and he and his family had several homes which dotted the island best known for its forbidding cliffs and dramatic views of the Atlantic. Garden, Ironbound Island, Maine depicts Margaret Blaney’s home, where the family stayed in the early days, with ocean views in the distance. The Blaneys would later move to “The Big House,” captured by John Singer Sargent in the early 1920s. In the present work depicting Margaret Blaney’s garden, Breck has created an audacious profusion of flowers and rendered them in a veritable symphony of bold colors.
A pioneer of the early American Impressionist movement and perhaps its most lauded artist in the last decade of the 19th century, Breck spent several foundational years at Giverny in the inner circle of Claude Monet, who undoubtedly influenced both the subject matter and stylistic execution of Breck’s garden paintings. Following a brief romance with Monet’s stepdaughter Blanche Hoschédé-Monet and some success in the French art scene, Breck debuted his Impressionist style in 1890 at the St. Botolph Club in Boston and in 1892, settled permanently in Auburndale, a suburb of Boston. His subsequent work reveals the extent of Monet’s influence as well as a distinct and innovative New England aesthetic.
Source: Christies
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